


Nook of LoVe

by the_real_cactus_betty



Series: You, Me. Us [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Its a pining superhighway, Mutual Pining, Pining, Sharing a Bed, Spooning, alternative POV, drinking buddies, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_real_cactus_betty/pseuds/the_real_cactus_betty
Summary: Two friends, a wedding and a looming deadline.A retelling of ‘Spinster Table’ from Logan’s POV. It’s the same, but different. ;)
Relationships: Logan Echolls/Veronica Mars
Series: You, Me. Us [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2161011
Comments: 208
Kudos: 177





	1. Pre-wedding Jitters

_**Important Note:** _

If you have not read Spinster Table, I strongly suggest you read it first. [Here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796).

This is essentially a re-telling of Spinster Table from Logan's POV, so a lot of the backstory weaves through both fics.

If you want to get crazy and read the POVs side by side, the corresponding chapters of each fic have the same name. (Except Chapter 1 in Nook of Love - Bonus Chapter).

_This fic is for Aurora2020 who planted the seed for this. She also deserves all the kudos for being an awesome beta!_

* * *

AU divergence after the movie. Veronica came to exonerate Logan, but they never kissed. Veronica moved back to Neptune and they became best friends.

* * *

**Chapter 1 - Pre-wedding jitters**

Veronica made us dinner and now moans as she cleans up the towering pile of dishes. I don’t understand the need to use every single pot in the kitchen, but alas, we now get to scale our way up dish mountain.

Veronica washes, I dry.

I’ve created this routine because I like things to be in their correct place. Too many times I’ve found items randomly just placed wherever Veronica saw fit at the time.

A bowl stacked on a dinner plate, _really_?

Also, this option gives me an excellent opportunity to just watch her without her eyes finding mine. Sleeves pushed up around her arms, hands elbow-deep in soapy water, feet on tiptoes to reach her high counters. A delightful view of her tiny waist and backside. Occasionally her wet hands raise to wipe an errant hair from her eyes.

I momentarily consider assisting, but hold back at a safe distance.

She complains as she finally makes it to the last pot, scrubbing at it fiercely. “This is bullshit, tomorrow it’s take out.”

“I shall pencil it in my diary.”

“This is officially the worst job in the world, I want a dishwasher, well, not an _actual_ dishwasher because then I still need to stack and unstack. I want a human to appear at my whim and clean whenever a dish is dirty.” Veronica speaks into the pot.

I cock my head to the side, “I think that kind of job description only exists in fairy tales. Cinderella would have had a fairy-dishwasher.” I offer.

“Cinderella WAS the dishwasher, seriously, brush up on your childhood fiction Echolls,” she looks at me with mock indignation.

“If we’re listing completely imaginary things we want, I want a fairy-clothes washer. I hate that shit.” I reply.

“A fairy-lawyer, to do my work for me.”

“A fairy-bedmaker.”

“A fairy-coffee maker.”

“You mean fairy-barista?”

She keeps staring at the pot she’s scrubbing but I _know_ she rolled her eyes at my comment.

“A fairy-sexual satisfier?” I offer purely for reaction purposes.

She spins her head around, hands still submerged and stares as me, deadpan, the corners of a smile tickling her lips, “and, like usual, you’ve taken it a step too far.”

“I thought this was a safe space to express ourselves?”

“What the hell gave you that idea?”

“Like you didn’t think it,” I offer back.

She stays quiet, which only confirms my suspicions.

She wipes the counters as I stack away the last pots before she collects the laptop from her bedroom and opens it on the wet kitchen counter.

“I completely forgot to book the hotel, hopefully, there are rooms left. I don’t want to have to come home,” Veronica types, booking us a hotel for the wedding next weekend.

Wallace and Shae are getting married. My _friend_ Veronica and I both got separate invitations with no plus one specified. Because, of course, it is known that we will go together.

_Separate, but together._

_Single, but together._

It had been this way since Carrie died and since Veronica returned from New York to exonerate me … again. 

When she returned we morphed into a new phase, something we hadn’t really explored before, friends. Yes, we were technically friends in high school but that was more of a friendship group, we certainly didn’t hang out with just each other. This friendship was a curious and sometimes troubling development, but one I relied on more than I’d care to admit. We spent most evenings I was home from deployment together, weekends together, all available moments together.

After the whirlwind of my life that was Carrie, Veronica brought me some semblance of stability. It seemed that, for at least the past year, neither of us dated other people, well, we hadn’t yet, not that I knew of anyway. In our grueling schedule of bingeing television and delivery guys who know us on a first-name basis, I doubted it would be physically possible.

Somehow I’d ended up in the friendzone and I was okay with it, mostly.

Did I want more?

Yes.

Did Veronica?

Apparently, no.

Was I willing to risk _this,_ the friendship, the comfort, the banter, for a re-match of our tumultuous relationship?

Also, apparently no.

“We could always get a cab home. It would probably cost the same as a hotel,” I suggest.

“Do you want to share a room?” she asks, apparently finding availability.

_You, me, a wedding, alcohol, a hotel bed. YES!_

Sharing a room with Veronica Mars is, of course, a very bad idea. Staying in the hotel with Veronica at all sounds like a bad idea. Alcohol weakened my carefully curated walls that kept my feelings for Veronica at bay. Weddings were troublesome, weddings made people do things they wouldn’t normally do. Surrounded by all that happiness and love, it was like a full moon, it filled people with a madness. A lusty madness, and I was certain that I would be no exception.

“Sure,” I answer, suddenly unsure why that was my automatic response despite my reservations on the matter. I notice a lopsided smile at my reaction.

“But two beds,” I add.

Veronica looks at me like I’ve suddenly grown a second head.

“Relax, stud. I’ll book a twin room,” she also tends to the friendzone, thinking. “Unless, you want to get your own room, you know, hot bridesmaids and all? I don’t want to be ousted while you’re doing _things_ with some random,” she shudders. I’m amused at the thought that she can’t directly refer to me having sex with someone.

I shake my head vehemently, “Sharing a room is fine.”

She shrugs, whips out her credit card and starts punching in the numbers.

I have been growing increasingly aware that my extended leave was surely running out. The call would come any day now for redeployment and I had to be prepared.

But, I wasn’t.

I generally didn’t mind going back, but this time, things seemed different. I was almost dreading it, a pit forming in my stomach at the mere thought. I couldn’t quite pinpoint its cause, but I had my suspicions.

All I could do was hope that I wouldn’t be called back before the wedding. Veronica would be mad, and I wouldn’t blame her. Weddings were certainly far from her favorite outing. My role on the day had been assigned as ‘designated wing-man and general security against lecherous morons,’ or so I’d been told. 

It seemed like a critical job, at least according to Veronica.

“Done!” she clips the laptop closed with a smile.

It’s official, hotel room-sharing awaits me. 

* * *

“I’m going to party like it’s 1999,” it’s Saturday night and she sips at her pre-drink vodka soda and dances a little around the room. She’s wearing high heels and a black and gold sparkly dress that settles mid-thigh. She runs her hands up and down her dress as she moves in some criminally alluring manner, I make a pointed effort to look away. 

Oh, look at that very interesting houseplant!

Veronica is a pants girl these days, which I totally get for practicality and functionality purposes alone, far be it for me to decide what a woman should wear. Daily she dons her power suits and perfectly pressed tailored pants, hiding those _incredible_ legs beneath them. I certainly do not think about her short skirts and boots of highschool days gone by. No, no, no. 

So naturally, when she wears a dress now, it’s troubling. Troubling, mainly because it interferes with my ability to form complete sentences and tampers with my steely resolve to remain on this side of the friend line. 

I dare to take another look, my mouth goes dry at the sight and I take another long gulp of my beer.

Fuckidy fuck fuck, steely resolve crumbling.

I know she’s pumping herself up to go because she’s not the biggest fan of socializing, or events, or anything really that involves more than a handful of pre-approved friends. She’s prepping herself to be a supportive friend for Shae at her Bachelorette party, to have fun and let her hair down. I encouraged her to go, because, while I know she would much prefer to laze on the couch, she needs this.

Of course, I too, would also prefer to laze on her couch, but this night isn’t about me. 

“Are you ready?” I ask, she nods and checks the contents of her handbag, rustling around in the labyrinth inside. I briefly ponder the curious wonders that lurk within.

Apparently, all wonders are in their correct place, “Locked and loaded,” she salutes, clearly already a tad buzzed.

I grab my keys and I lead the way down the stairs, her heels click, clicking behind me. Then, I pause and turn to her, stopping her mid-step. She’s a few steps above me, so it puts us on an even height. I note that this would, indeed, be a perfect height for kissing.

I hold out my hand.

“What?” She asks.

“Hand it over.”

“Hand _what_ over?”

She knows exactly what I’m talking about but plays dumb.

I stare at her, “You’re more likely to injure yourself with that thing when you’re drunk than someone else. You’re going to a bachelorette party, you’ll be drinking from pink cock-straws, not fighting the Fitzpatricks.”

“But…” she starts.

“You’re safe with Shae,” I try to reassure her, “She isn’t as incessantly compelled to life-threatening situations as you are.”

She rolls her eyes and rummages in the handbag, placing the taser in my hand.

“Purple cock-straws are my favorite,” she says deviously.

_Ignore it, Logan._

It takes a surprising amount of effort to turn and continue down the stairs.

I start the engine and glance over at her in the darkness, her eyes meet mine for a brief moment. Recently I’ve developed a new appreciation of car rides with Veronica, something about proximity and enclosed spaces.

We drive in silence to the bar, I focus on the road and enjoy the scent of her perfume beside me.

Pulling up to the bar, I turn to her, “If you need anything, just call me. I’ll pick you up, anytime, just call.”

“Yes Dad,” she quips and I give her my best stern Dad look.

“Have fun.”

“You too.”

“You around tomorrow?” she asks, a little rushed. This was all part of the dance, we ask each other what we’re doing, knowing full well that our days and nights are reserved for each other. Almost like we’re constantly seeking permission to be in each other's lives.

“I am.”

“Cool.”

She unclips her seatbelt and hesitates for a moment, the glow from the neon bar lights illuminating her face. It seems like she is going to say something, so I stay silent, letting her find the words.

But she shakes her head a little, wisps of hair floating back and forth.

“Thanks for the ride.” She opens the door, steps outside and closes it without looking back.

“Bye.”

* * *

After Veronica was safely deposited at the bar, I went to play with Dick. 

Dick was excited to have me ‘after dark,’ or so he claimed and I was slightly concerned about the terrors that awaited me, would I be dragged out to nightclubs to watch him attempt to seduce young coeds? Would I be refereeing wet t-shirt contests? Would I be doing lines of coke off an escort's backside?

Every rendezvous with Dick was a gamble.

I needn’t have worried. I forgot, Dick is now in his thirties too, he was finally settling down (as much as someone like Dick could). There was only so long you could sustain that kind of activity night after night. I arrived to find that he had dragged a cooler next to the couch, stocked with beers and the pizza had already been ordered. So very organized. He patted my spot and handed me a controller.

“Did you drop off Feisty-McPain-In-The-Ass?”

“Veronica is safely deposited at the bachelorette party,” we press play and resume our game from last week.

“I’d _pay_ actual cash money to be a fly on the wall watching those girls go wild.”

I chuckle, “Yeah, me too.” It seems like some kind of secret society, who knows what the women get up to at these things?

“You know, like, _everything_ at a bachelorette is dedicated to men and cocks. Just proves what I’ve been saying all these years.”

_Don't ask, Logan. Don’t ask_. I summon the will to ignore it and move on.

“And what is that?” Damn it, curiosity got the better of me.

“Chicks are obsessed with Dick! Which is handy for me. They always, like, pretend not to love it, but secretly they do.”

“If you say so.”

“Oh, I know so.”

I make a casual glance down at my phone, unfortunately it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Hey,” Dick puts down his controller and makes eye contact with me. “Your girlfriend is out for the night. It's boys time now. You, me, Call of Duty. We’re going to shoot some shit.”

I nod and load up my gun.

We play and chat and the pizza is delivered and devoured during a small rest break. Dick lives in a downtown apartment which is a textbook trust-fund bachelor pad. He continues to live off the Casablancas family money and does very little to no actual work. He did moonlight as a surf model for a few months back in 2011 and have two lines in an indie movie, but that was the last time I recall him directly referring to paid employment.

After a brief bathroom break, Dick reappears beside me and reloads.

“So, this chick I told you about the other day, Breanna, is Dad’s girlfriend’s, friend. She’s an _actual_ underwear model. Stunning! They asked her to do the Victoria's Secret show but she was like, in New Zealand or something. Anyway, she asked me for your number. We were talking and I mentioned you, and how you fly jets and shit and she was all, woah uniform, and I was like, yeah. And she was like, hot!” Have I inadvertently been transported directly into Wayne's World?

“Did you _give_ her my number?”

“Umm, yeah.”

I groan and turn back to the screen. Dick’s setups were nothing but horrific. I’d agreed to a few over the years and likened it to being skinned alive. 

“Jesus Christ Logan, you don't have to marry her, just put on that white uniform chick’s dig and take her to pound town a few times. You clearly need it.”

“I don't need it, I’m fine!”

“Riiiiiiight.” Dick nods, “Yeah, let's keep on that freaky-ass relationship where you pine over Veronica until your balls turn blue and your dick falls off. You don’t date, she doesn’t date. Its fucking weird man. You get the relationship experience without the sex? What's the point? Sounds like a bum deal” he cackles, like he’s just thought of something ….. “You’re in the friendzone dude!”

No shit, Dick.

I was headfirst in friend-zone and I wasn’t really sure how I got there in the first place. I mean, she _knew_ what it was like to be with me, but chose not to go down that path again. That, in itself, spoke volumes.

“You’re like friends with benefits, but … without the benefits.”

“Yeah, so just … friends?” 

He doesn’t understand, no one will ever understand.

“Whatever, what you guys have going on, makes _no_ sense to me.”

He’s got a point there. Not a lot about it made sense.

“I get it, man. Veronica’s a cool chick and you two have like some weird cosmic connection and can’t-stay-away-from-each-other shit going on. But either make a move, or move on, man. It’s not fair to either of you.”

I nod, trying to focus on the game and not the fact that Dick has just made a very enlightened and valid point.

“Do you think she’s got some side piece playing hide the cannoli?” he muses, not looking away from the screen. Dicks enlightenment is short-lived.

_What the actual fuck?_

“Hide. The. Cannoli?” I say it slowly, trying to comprehend the food slash sex reference and how in the hell it relates to Veronica. In one sentence he’d ruined Italian desserts for me forever.

“Yeah,” Dick looks at me like _I’m_ the crazy one. Casablancas logic, questionable at best, downright terrifying at worst.

“Whatever, just bone her and get over it, I’m sick of hearing you mope about it,” he rolls his eyes and turns back to the game.

Exasperated I start to speak, “I do not wanna…” and then I stop, because both Dick and I know that I do, in fact, want to bone her. Of course, Dick is the sensei of knowing if and when someone wants to bone someone, because his entire life is dedicated to the fine art of boning.

I glance at my phone for any messages. Nothing.

“Dude, stop looking at your phone! She’s out having fun, partying with men who actually make a move.”

I reach over and wrap my hand around his controller, pull it from his hands and throw it across the room. 

Yep, those anger management classes were worth every penny.

Dick’s avatar is promptly shot, by me, and I cackle in my best diabolical evil laugh.

He shrugs, picks up a piece of cold pizza, and shoves it in his mouth.

* * *

The next morning, I ride my bike the six blocks to Veronica’s apartment. The morning summer sun beats hot against my back. I pedal leisurely, each round movement of my legs bringing me closer to her. I developed the habit a while back, it was not only good exercise but meant that I could enjoy as many alcoholic beverages as I wanted at her apartment without the fear of DUIs. There was only one minor incident where we’d enjoyed a few too many whiskey sours and on my return home, I plowed into a row of trash cans. Thankfully, the paramedics said I’d only suffered from a mild concussion.

Now, I wear a helmet. Safety first!

Veronica is curled up on the couch when I enter the room she groans loudly and dramatically, shielding her eyes from the light peeking through the door. Her hair is wild, her face pale as she cowers into the cushions. She is wearing only one shoe, the sole bare foot peeks out from her jacket that doubles as a blanket.

I walk over to the kitchen and take out a large saucepan, a towel from the bathroom and place them next to her, the towel carefully covering part of the couch from potential splashback. 

“Urggghh,” she gargles when she sees me next to her, “Don’t bother, already hurled,” she moans back into the pillow.

I’d made several attempts at contact this morning and after a barrage of increasingly drunken texts at 3 am and multiple calls, I figured she’d need some general life assistance and someone to ensure she didn’t drown in her own vomit.

I made a very concerted effort to not deep-dive into the meaning of her drunken ramblings and just take them at face value. Alcohol makes you do things that you wouldn’t normally.

_It means nothing._

Pulling some electrolyte tablets from my pocket, I crush them in my hands and push them into her drink bottle. Then I sit down on the floor next to her head, my arm resting on the coffee table.

“Big night? It sounds like you did, in fact, party like it was 1999?”

“I partied like I was never going to party again,” Veronica takes the drink bottle from my hands and takes a tentative sip. “How did you know I’d be dying?” she pauses, face pale. “Oh God, I called you didn’t I?”

I smirk at her then shake my head, “Only seven phone calls and 23 messages. No biggie.”

“Fuck!” her face suddenly starts to color, the blush rising to her cheeks.

_Logan get your ARMS here and meet me at the club. Pleeeease. I NEED you here._

“Wallace called to tell me he’d picked you all up and dropped you home safely, and that you were still breathing.”

“Jesus Christ, I have no memory of getting home at all,” she lays back and looks up at the ceiling. I know that face well, it's the face of _remembering._ The good old days of recollecting all the drunken antics from the night before and praying your memories had deceived you. I smile thinking about her checking her phone and reading the messages she’d sent me, that would be payback for keeping me up all night in itself.

“What did you drink?” I ask.

“What didn’t I drink?”

_LOGAN, you, me, dancefloor. NOW!_

She covers her face, mortified, peeking through her eyes. “Oh God, I remember, I got kicked out of the club!”

I chuckle, imagining her at her drunken, psychotic best. “What the hell did you do to get kicked out?”

_Logan, fine, whatever. Don’t come and dance with me, I’ll just have to dance with this guy over here._

I’m not going to lie. I was tempted, very tempted. It would be so easy to get in the car and dance with her. But, I wanted sober Veronica, _real_ Veronica.

“There was yelling... ” she continues to think, it's still not all coming to her yet, “I think I yelled at a stripper, or some guy at the bar … I can’t remember why.” 

“There were strippers?”

“Yeah, of course, it's a Bachelorette,” she shakes it away like it’s nothing.

“Wow, right, I didn’t think that was Shae’s style.” 

“You didn’t think that Shae would be interested in hot, scantily clad, muscled men lavishing her with attention?” I don't know why but I feel a little green-eyed at the thought of Veronica enjoying the delights of male strippers.

But, then again, if there were smoking hot strippers there, why was she repeatedly calling _me?_

“Clearly, I’m remiss.”

“Clearly.” She struggles a little and sits up, pulling the jacket over her head to protect her eyes. Of course, this leaves her bare legs exposed, just the bottom of that tiny black and gold dress resting on her thigh. And again, the legs. 

_Do not look at the legs, Logan._

Friends don't look at friends legs, at least not like _that._

I turn my head and refocus on trusty houseplant instead.

“Don’t fool yourself Logan Echolls, objectifying the opposite sex is not only for men to do.” She must be feeling better if she’s berating me.

“Consider me schooled,” I acquiesce, “So, this male stripper… was he hot?”

“That question makes no sense, Logan.” Veronica looks at me confused, and I agree, I’m confusing the situation but can’t seem to stop.

“I guess what I’m wondering is, like, was he classically handsome or only good for his abnormally large appendage?”

She laughs, “Okay, school continues. Most of the time as much as they’re called male strippers, they spend like 98 percent of the time in their underwear gyrating towards the bride. You might see some nude butt, very rarely do you see an exposed appendage.”

“Right, okay, interesting.” You learn something new every day, male strippers don't actually strip. Seems rather pointless.

She rolls her eyes and laughs at me, I feel better instantly because she’s feeling good enough to make fun of me. “Back to your handsome question - He was a solid 7.”

“A seven?!” Wow, okay that was higher than I imagined. 

I feel another stupid question coming on.

“What am I? You know, purely to assess your baseline for ranking,” I ask.

Veronica thinks about it for a while. She plays with her drink bottle, mulling it over, apparently precisely three more sips helps her to decide.

She shrugs, “I’d say a 9.2,” she speaks but won’t look me in the eyes.

That’s promising. I’ll take it.

I can't stop the smirk on my face, “Really, 9.2? That’s very _specific_ , very _mathematical_ Veronica. Pray tell, for what do I earn the extra point two?”

“It’s more _losing_ points for your smart mouth.”

“Interesting, so without the attitude, I’d be a solid ten?”

She shrugs, still not meeting my eyes but smirking back all the same.

“What about me?” she asks.

_You’re a ten, no question._

“Well, if I’m to use your logic, deducting points for a ‘smart mouth’ as it were, then I’m afraid you might be in trouble… Can we go into negatives?” I tease her.

“What are you saying?” Veronica feigns shock.

I raise my eyebrows. “I think you _know_ what I’m saying.”

She rolls her eyes at me from under her jacket. If I had a dollar for every time she rolled her eyes I’d sleep in a bed of money, I’d use it as napkins, I would drape the bills all over her naked body…

_No Logan. Stop._

I change the subject. “Well, this is a good reminder for us to pace ourselves at the wedding. We don’t want to get kicked out for abusing the bride or groom.”

“That’s if I’m still invited to the wedding after last night.”

I chuckle and flick on the television, leaning my back against the couch beside her and settle in for a lazy hangover recovery Sunday with the most beautiful girl in Neptune.

Because nothing cements the friendzone like holding her sick bucket, sitting on the couch watching TV all day long without a single touch contact, then at midnight riding your bike in the dark to your cold apartment.

It’s okay. I’m happy there, mostly. 

Early in our new friendship I was exiled to the friendzone and kept there, at a careful distance. The boyfriend-experience, without the inherent mess that came with it. I get it, I’m messy, I created more destruction in Veronica’s life than I ever created joy. Keeping me at arms length was a smart move on her part.

So the friendzone is my little box and I snuggle into it because, for the most part, I _adore_ being friends with Veronica. She’s funny, sassy, bold, bossy and insanely smart. She calms me, and centers me in a world that I don’t always feel has a center point. Her friendship is my safety, my family and I need it like I need oxygen.

The key to the box is it’s four strong walls. I envision them both keeping me inside and keeping her out. Because the box embodies everything that is safe. As soon as one of the walls starts to fall, I find a way to crawl out, and she finds a way to crawl in. Like, it’s inevitable somehow. 

Sometimes I feel myself dragging her into the box with me because, of course, I love Veronica Mars. I wasn’t sure I knew how to live in the world _without_ loving her. It was something organic, something in my DNA. At the same time, it was something that I’d come to accept as my normal, which made it a little easier to ignore. Until of course, she did something, something adorable and _everything_ in my being just wants to go back there, to pull her into my arms. 

But no, I fight it. 

I’m a fighter by nature, well-practiced.

But it is getting old. I’m tired of fighting. 


	2. Saturday

If you want to do a side-by-side reading here is the link to [Saturday in Spinster Table](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/57926779)

* * *

“Pass me the impact driver,” Josh points. I pick it up, press the button a few times to hear the vvvrrrr vvvrrrr sound of the drill, you know, just to check it’s working, and pass it to him.

He grins and shakes his head.

“Hey, at least I knew what it was,” I offer, hands up.

It was no secret, I was not the handiest of men. Look at my upbringing, I barely had to butter bread myself, certainly being schooled by Daddy on home handiwork was never going to be on our weekend to-do list. But I was trying, I could pass nails, I could hammer stuff, Josh seems to find me particularly helpful at holding things steady for him.

I never professed to be handy, I was here for brute force and good looks alone.

“Hold this,” he gestures with his head while I take the cornice, line it up with the marks on the wall, holding it steady for him while he secures it in place.

I’d met Josh a few years into training at the Kingsville Naval Air Station in Texas. We had six months to get acquainted, sharing dorms and spending eight hours a day folding our bodies into the cockpit of a T-45C Goshawk. Running consecutive training drills and perfecting our arresting hook landings before we were trusted with landings on a carrier. When we finally finished our training and I landed my rubber on the flight deck floating in the Atlantic for the first time, he was there. It was a good feeling.

Six more deployments together and he was like a brother, a good-natured, annoying, pain-in-the-ass brother. The kind that I willingly help on a Saturday morning doing home renovations that I’m highly unqualified for.

“All this work,” he mumbles with a screw in between his lips, “and we’re going to have to leave.”

“What?”

“Leiha’s pregnant,” he whispers to me.

“Wow, that's awesome, congratulations!”

“It’s another girl,” he smirks and rolls his eyes, but I can tell, he’s delighted at the thought. He already had two lovely little girls to come home to after every tour, I’m sure another would complete the package.

“It means, of course, that we’re going to have to move. We can’t sleep two kids and a baby in the same room together, we need something bigger.”

“Shit man, you’ve done all this amazing work, the place looks incredible,” I say, meaning it wholeheartedly. Josh and Leiha had renovated every inch of this home back to its former glory. It was a classic Californian bungalow built in the 1920s painted pale grey with white accents. The polished oak floors, a stunning kitchen, a stone fireplace and a large outdoor deck. 

It had such a feel of _home._

“Don’t want to buy it, do you?” he asks as he watches me looking around.

I shake my head and laugh it off, but my mind starts to wander. I could imagine enjoying a cold beer on the deck, cooking breakfast in the kitchen, lounging on the couch in front of the fire. Of course, these imaginings all include doing these things with a certain petite blonde. Somehow she seems to complete this fantasy. What's a home without someone in it to love, someone who loves you?

Clearly, I was firmly ensconced in a fantasy of my own making.

“Hey! Wake up!” Josh yells at me, he puts on his battle voice which is deeper and more clipped and it works to stir me from my errant thoughts. 

I glance at my watch. “Shit, I’ve got to go, the wedding is in a few hours.” I put down the tools and wipe my hands on a rag.

“Ahh yes, don’t want to leave your hot wedding date waiting,” Josh winks, chuckling.

“It’s not a date, we had _separate invitations,_ we’re driving there in _separate cars,_ ” I explain, like that somehow negates his teasing. 

It’s not a date. I remind myself, a little nervous at the thought.

“So, then you’re staying in _separate hotel rooms?”_ he asks.

I sigh, he’s got me there, “No, but...”

He interrupts me, “Yeah, yeah, say what you want. I _know_ what you want Lieutenant Echolls,” he goads me knowingly.

I start backing out of the room. “Catch you later,” I scurry down the hallway, saying quick goodbyes to Leiha and the girls. Escaping before he has a chance to make any more references to the feelings he knows I have. You can't spend months and months together with someone and not have them know your deepest darkest secrets and desires…. _Or maybe you could?_

Hopping into my car I do a mental checklist in my head: 

Home. Shower. Collect Suit. Drive. Veronica.

The last item on my list made me drive just a little faster than usual.

* * *

Five minutes out from the Winery, I am blasting my music, singing out loud, excited for the night ahead. I am running at least fifteen minutes late which I was _sure_ I would soon be scolded for. Of course, I don't really care, Veronica’s cute when she’s mad.

The Bluetooth cuts out the music and I answer the phone, certain it’s Veronica calling to berate me.

“Ms. Mars, have you got your panties in a twist?” I ask her.

“Lieutenant Echolls?” the voice, _which most definitely is not Veronica_ , is deep and harsh. 

I would laugh, if I wasn’t so sure about what was about to follow those words.

“Yes Sir.”

“Commander Scarff here. Advising orders to deploy from North Island, Thursday morning at 0700 hours.”

“Yes Sir.”

“I’ll make contact again on Monday with further information.”

“Yes Sir.”

He hangs up and the music automatically comes back on. I reach for the volume and turn it down, suddenly no longer in the mood to sing along.

Fuck.

I’d been home for three months now, three months of bliss. Three months of lunches, surfing, tv, takeout, laughter. Three months of _her_ , sitting beside me on the couch each night. 

A knot twists in my stomach, pulling hard, making a tourniquet around my insides. 

“Fuck!” I yell and punch the steering wheel a few times for good measure. 

There is nothing I can do. I resolve to keep this information to myself until tomorrow, no need to dampen the wedding atmosphere.

I see the sign for the hotel, indicate and steer inside, parking myself next to Veronica’s car. Taking three deep breaths, my cheeks muscle upwards as I practice my smile, practice my guise that everything is normal. I check it in the rear vision mirror, it seems passable. 

It’s showtime.

* * *

The ceremony is as wedding ceremonies tend to be, long, uncomfortable affairs that draw out into milling around the gardens in your finest attire with a smile plastered on your face. We’d made it through without any major incidents. No murders. Check. No runaway-brides. Check. There were a few moments where it seemed like Veronica might make herself a runaway guest, so I did what I could to calm her. A platonic arm pat here, a reassuring glance there. 

I look her in the eye, “I know you hate weddings. Repeat after me. Open. Bar.” 

“Open. Bar.” She repeats carefully.

“Good girl.”

I was more than happy to be moved into the reception venue, with a beautiful blonde by my side wearing an incredibly distracting emerald green dress. This dress had a side split that can only be described as dangerous. For me, anyway. Said blonde, however, was busy lamenting our assigned seating at the spinster table as she referred to it so kindly, _and loudly_ , in earshot of our tablemates. 

We make introductions and small talk with our fellow ‘spinsters’ while dinner starts being served. I have been placed next to a middle-aged woman named Rebecca who seems to have taken an immediate liking to me. While I attempt to make amicable conversation she repeatedly adjusts her breasts further and further towards me to the point I wouldn’t be surprised if one jumped directly out of her dress and her nipple grazed my arm. 

Veronica is seated next to a wannabe bodybuilder, Brett, who she tolerates begrudgingly while catching my eyes to give me death stares in between a fast disappearing flute of champagne. I motion the waitress to refill my glass as I attempt to catch up. 

Even with the possibility of a nip slip before me, I could sense Veronica’s unease beside me. Carefully, I slip my hand beneath the white linen tablecloth and place it reassuringly on her thigh. Soft and warm beneath my fingers, by some temporary insanity I’d forgotten about the split in her dress. At no point had I considered that actual skin would be involved, _thigh skin_ no less! 

_Jesus Fucking Christ._

I whip my hand as fast as I can back to my lap, which is fortuitous because it can now cover my growing thigh-related erection.

Veronica gives me a look that can only be described as _what the actual fuck?_

We went to considerable efforts not to touch. Since establishing the friendzone, it had somehow developed as an unspoken rule. It gave us boundaries and I _really_ needed boundaries. So, going from nothing to a clothless deliberate touch was borderline pornographic. 

Rebecca turns to us and asks, “Have you two known each other long?” I am eternally grateful to her for the distraction.

“Too long,” Veronica replies, mouth full, seconds after a forkful of dinner entered her lips.

“We went to school together,” I try to explain.

“Did you ever date?” Rebecca asks, innocently enough.

_If only she knew how loaded that question was._

We both nod. “In high school, and a bit in college.”

“That was a long time ago. It feels like centuries ago.” Veronica rambles, because another of our rules is to never _ever_ talk about the relationship that once was.

I grin at her, “Yeah Veronica, centuries,” and roll my eyes.

“He’s more of an annoying older brother figure to me now.”

Is she saying this to annoy me in that cute pain-in-the-ass banter way, or does she genuinely think it?

“OLDER brother, really?”

“Yeah,” she points her fork at me, “you _are_ technically older than me.”

“Three months!” I’m suddenly itching for a battle with her. Of course, our tablemates look on at us curiously.

“Exactly! Anyway, he acts like my older brother most of the time, so I think it fits.”

I decide that some gentle stirring is in order, “Brett,” I ask “Tell me, do you work out?” I stare her directly in the eyes. A challenge. 

Unfortunately for me, it backfires, and I have to feign interest in Brett’s intense bodybuilding and bulking regime. It was tiring, to say the least. When he finally finishes, I feel Veronica’s leg nudge against mine and I nudge her back, just a little bit harder. 

_This is a dangerous game, don’t be a fucking idiot Echolls, stop touching her!_

“Well,” I turn to Brett, “You’re sitting in the right place because Veronica just loves ripped guys.”

She splutters a mouthful of champagne out and glares at me. If looks could kill, I’d be in a puddle of blood, stabbed with a silver wedding knife right about now.

An evil smirk crosses her lips, “Hey Logan, why don’t you tell Rebecca about the two murder charges you beat. That’s a good story.”

I freeze mid-fork-into-mouth. She casually tips her champagne flute at me.

She’s so cute when she’s evil.

“Don’t forget, my Dad is a convicted murderer too!” I add dryly, looking at Veronica deadpan. Two can play at this game.

She shakes her head at me and the guests within earshot shuffle uncomfortably in their seats.

Rebecca looks mildly horrified, but not quite horrified as I’d hoped. Stilted table chatter resumes around us. Rebecca’s hand reaches under the table mid-conversation and her fingers graze against my leg. I fear that mentions of my not-so life of crime have encouraged her. Suddenly leg touching is not quite so appealing.

Veronica leans towards me and whispers “Maybe you should have left that little nugget of information for the second date?”

I shrug, “You know me, I like to lay all my cards on the table nice and early.”

* * *

Speeches finished, Shae calls to all the single ladies to come to the floor, it’s time to catch the bouquet. Rebecca springs up gleefully while Veronica, I’m certain, wants to crawl under the table or insert a fork directly into her eye. It’s unspoken. I won't press her to go there. She will _not_ go there. I question the need to continue the tradition of singling out unattached females to fight-it-out publicly for the so-called prize of impending marriage. An ecstatic older lady catches it and I feel Veronica breathe a sigh of relief that the horror of horrors is over.

The DJ resumes and Rebecca reappears beside me at the table, “Care to dance?” she asks a little too casually.

 _How the hell do I get out of this one?_ _Sorry can’t dance with my prosthetic Leg? My line-dancing troupe says I need to stay off my feet until the next competition?_

I shuffle in my seat, “Oh, sorry I’m not much of a dancer.”

I notice Veronica turn her head away.

Rebecca pauses for a moment before replying “No worries. I’ll go join the girls,” and she disappears onto the dance floor. 

Veronica looks at me and pointedly raises her eyebrows, I raise mine back.

“Smooth,” she mouths.

“The smoothest.”

* * *

Shae drags a reluctant Veronica to the dance floor, surrounded by a gaggle of ladies, doing some kind of jig in a circle. I watch her visibly relax as the songs continue. Her hair has come a little loose and blonde strands are starting to trickle down the back of her neck, her lipstick is long gone, along with her shoes. The beaming smile confirms for me that right now, she is more beautiful than she has been all night. 

As she dances, her thigh keeps making delightful appearances through the split of her dress. 

In, out.

In, out.

In, out.

I know how that thigh feels and the memory of it causes my fingers to twitch at my sides.

I’m hypnotized, and I stand, my legs suddenly moving separate to my body, transporting me over to her. I can’t let tonight end without dancing with her. I would never forgive myself.

Shae watches me approach with a smirk and taps Veronica on the shoulder to alert her to my presence.

I put out my hand, “Dance?” Veronica smiles and takes it. Her hands are so small and warm in my own. 

“I thought you didn’t dance?” she asks in that knowing voice.

_I only dance with you._

I don’t answer her and place my arms around her lower back, pulling her into me. This is the most physical contact we’ve had in 10 years. 

Bodies. 

Flush. 

Together.

Fitting perfectly, easily.

I listen to the music, it’s Phil Collins ‘Groovy Kind of Love ‘ and it seems particularly apt.

“So…” I finally speak, “I’m being deployed again on Thursday. I just got the call on the way here. I wasn’t going to tell you tonight. But I felt like I should.” I tell her before really thinking about it. I do it for purely selfish reasons, I want to see if she’s upset, if she cares as much as I do. When she’s this close she can’t perform her usual evasion tactics, she needs to be here, to react, in front of me.

“Oh, for how long?” she asks, her voice tinged with sadness and her shoulders suddenly slumped. 

I shrug. Suddenly not wanting to talk about this anymore. Mad at myself for ruining what should be a happy night for her. Because of course, I got my answer in her eyes. 

She’s devastated.

* * *

I don't last too long on the dancefloor, when ABBA comes on and Shae gets that crazy look in her eye the gaggle of girls reforms and I take my leave.

I take a stroll outside for a while, enjoying the quiet and the cold air on my face. Suddenly intensely sad that I’m leaving all this behind in a matter of days.

When I return I steer clear of our seats and my spinster table admirer who winks at me from across the room.

I scan the crowd for faces, well, only one face really. I can’t find her. I do a lap of the room, the guests slowly growing weary from a long day of smiles and joviality. Suit jackets hang limp on the back of chairs, ties have been loosened and perfect wedding hair has dropped in the humidity.

I finally find her in the hallway, outside the bathrooms. She’s sitting on the cream carpet, chatting to a waitress who hands her a band-aid. She gives me a half-wave, the waitress smiles at me and wanders away.

Veronica is nursing her foot and rubs at her toe with a wet cloth, it has a few tiny red drops of blood on it. She has a glass of champagne on the floor beside her and I reach out, take the glass and have a sip.

“Dance floor injury?” I gesture to her foot.

She nods “Wallace’s aunt’s stilettos and my toe did not make friends.”

“The dangers of barefoot grooving.”

Veronica waggles her finger at me, “You should have stayed for the conga!”

I grimace, “You couldn’t handle my conga.”

She nods, like she agrees wholeheartedly.

Peeling off the cloth she groans drunkenly, “It hurts!” 

“I get that but you’re going to bleed on the very expensive carpet.”

She inspects it, touches it gingerly. “Ugh, I’m dying. It will be how I die. My eulogy will read Veronica Mars. Dead at 31. While escaping from the Spinster Table, she dared to groove too close to a stiletto and paid the ultimate price.” She reaches over, takes the champagne flute back, her fingers grazing mine and casually drinks.

_There is something about sharing a glass..._

“Good to see you’re not exaggerating.” I take the band-aid from her and start unwrapping it.

She pulls off the wet cloth, displaying her wound. “Will I live doctor?” she shuffles around when I try to look at it.

The toe has the world's smallest cut on it, without a doubt even a bandaid would be overkill. Drunk Veronica is most definitely a hypochondriac.

“Probably, but I fear I must prescribe regular sponge baths. Of which, I humbly volunteer my services.”

She chuckles but won't look at me. I’m just so happy to see her smile.

Crouching down, I sit on the floor beside her, lift her foot onto my lap, wrapping the bandage around it, gently pushing at the strip to adhere to her perfect little toe. 

“It’s your fault, you left me unsupervised. I _danced_ ,” she leans close to me, slurring slightly whispering, “I _had fun.”_

I shake my head at her, “Your secret is safe with me,” I whisper back, close.

_Too close._

“Pinky swear?” Veronica holds out her pinky to me. We lock them together and something passes between those pinkies. I don’t know what it is, but it's setting off alarm bells in my ears.

She breaks the pact and holds her index finger up, “You better. I know how to kill you and never get caught.”

I sigh, “We talked about this Veronica. No plotting murders at weddings.”

“But it’s my _favorite_ place to plot murders,” she pouts, “Fine, I’ll save it for work. Plenty of good candidates there.”

“Good girl.” I kiss my index finger and press it quickly to the bandaid. Veronica looks at me from under those long eyelashes, her gaze is questioning and I feel like the longing in my own eyes is mirrored in hers. Maybe I’m imagining it. Maybe I’m not?

_Abort Logan._

_Abort!_

I break the _look_ and smile as casually as possible. You know, just kissing boo-boos on the hallway floor, no big deal. 

I need to get out of this position, it’s not smart or safe. I reach out my hand to help her off the ground, “Can you walk?”

She grins cheekily, “No.”

“Liar,” I reply and heave her to a full standing position where she walks with only the slightest limp.

I leave her to go and seek out a bartender, intent to swipe another bottle of champagne before the night ends because I think I _really_ need it.

* * *

As the circle forms to say goodbye to the happy couple Veronica and I stand, both swaying slightly, awaiting our turn.

Finally, Wallace makes his way over.

“Hey! Johnny and June!” He smiles at us and wraps Veronica in a hug.

It was the first time I’d crossed his path the whole day. You rarely get to spend any actual time with the bride and groom, which happens when they’re trying to divide their time between a hundred or so of their nearest and dearest. Wallace and I seemed to have come to some kind of truce over the years. Not that I ever had anything against him personally, but it was historically clear that I didn’t make an appearance on his BFF list. Not surprising considering I acted like a human stampede over Veronica’s life for quite some time.

He was Veronica’s best friend for years, then he found a girl, got engaged, and passed the proverbial torch to me. So there was a mutual respect there, an unspoken connection. Two guys, who both understood what it was to be ruled by a stubborn, headstrong, dry, beautiful, tiny blonde girl. 

I shake his hand and offer my congratulations, and he gives me the smile that says _it’s all you now buddy._

Geez, no pressure.

“You look like you had fun,” he points to Veronica’s barefooted, band-aided toe.

She shakes her head, “Me, never.”

“Good, wouldn’t want you to have enjoyed yourself,” she leans forward and hugs him again, tightly, like maybe she can drag him back into singledom.

“Have an awesome honeymoon,” she punches his arm sadly and playfully.

“Make sure you drink until the absolute end, it’s all paid for.”

Veronica salutes, drunkenly, “Yes, Sir!”

Wallace has more guests waiting, he has to move on, his eyes glance towards them.

“Have a good night you two, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he chuckles and winks at Veronica, and they exchange a very pointed conspiratorial _look._

Hmm, interesting.

* * *

We stroll back to the hotel in the moonlight. I can’t stop my thoughts from racing. 

I’m leaving in four days. 96 hours left, even less if you count the time Veronica has to spend at work this week. Maybe four hours each night, at best, an hour for each lunch break visit, that's about 20 hours left together. I’m baffled by the math I can do in my head after so much champagne, but more baffled by the hard figures, the hard reality before me. 

I feel myself walking a little slower, suddenly intent on prolonging _this_ as much as I can.

We find ourselves back at the hotel, standing at the door I shuffle around in my pocket for the key. 

_Hopefully, I’ve lost it._

Nope, it's here. Damn. I unlock the door, which takes a few attempts as the key mixed with alcohol makes it appear like the door has grown a second lock.

Finally inside, the hotel room is strangely warm and we stand for a moment by the door. I’m not sure what I’m expecting here, and it appears neither does she. Awkwardness explodes in little grenades around us.

Yep, I knew it, room sharing is a definite no-no for the future.

Maybe I should offer to unzip her dress? I imagine the feel of the zip in between my fingers, slowly pulling it down, each inch I drag it revealing more and more of her creamy skin. I wonder if she has a bra under there? I doubt it. 

I’m suddenly steadfast that I am _not_ going to offer any of my semi-professional undressing assistance, even if it _is_ one of my greatest talents.

“Well, I’m going to go and get changed in the bathroom, I don’t want to offend your delicate sensibilities,” I stutter and rush ungracefully into the bathroom, as far away from zips as possible.

In the bathroom, I change out of my suit. Unbuttoning my shirt, I will my fingers to slow down. I stop and rest against the vanity, taking three deep breaths and staring back at the closed bathroom door.

Behind that door, Veronica is slipping out of _that_ dress. I imagine the emerald green fabric in a pile on the floor and run my fingers through my hair, steadying myself, reminding myself. 

Veronica is just my friend.

Just a friend.

A friend who I’m in love with, again.

A friend who is waiting behind that door, getting ready for bed. She thinks of me as a brother, she said it herself. But on the floor when our pinkies locked, for the briefest of moments, her eyes told me a different story. I saw something there, hidden, and it scared me. It terrified me because it gave me a second to consider that maybe, she felt it too.

I stare at myself in the mirror. _Pull yourself together, Logan!_

I shake it off, take the little glasses out of their paper wrapping and fill them with water. Certain that it would be enough time for her to change, I slowly re-enter the room and deposit the glasses on the side table.

She lays on the bed on her back, eyes squeezed closed. I turn off the light and climb into the tiny bed. Only a two-foot gap separates us in the small motel room. I lay on my back, hand resting behind my head. The room warps a little, the Champagne still bubbling through my veins.

“Did you get Rebecca’s number?” She asks, clearly still awake. 

“No,” I answer. There was not one moment I considered even asking for it. “Did you get Brett’s?” I tease, knowing that there was no way Veronica would be interested in someone like that.

We laugh and I turn on my side to face Veronica, staring at her in the darkness. I wish I could read her mind, explore her thoughts and wade through her silence.

“Veronica,” I ask, “Do you _really_ think of me as a brother now?” The alcohol is giving me the briefest moment of confidence to ask the question. I don’t know why I _needed_ to hear it, but a brother figure was the last thing I wanted Veronica to associate with me.

“No,” she replies after a pause.

I let out a deep sigh of relief.

We say goodnight and Veronica’s side of the room falls silent. But I can’t seem to will my eyes closed, can’t seem to find anything close to the desire to sleep.

All night I’d been desperately trying to extend these moments with her and now, knowing that my departure was imminent, everything was exacerbated. I toss and turn, pulling the tucked in sheets out, letting my legs fall out the side of the small bed.

While Veronica is silent beside me, I know she’s still awake. I can almost _hear_ her thinking.

Suddenly, she moves, her sheets pull back and I freeze. She’s probably just going to the bathroom so I hold my breath, pretending to be asleep.

But she stops.

I can feel her presence next to my bed, see the faintest outline of her form above me. Without a thought, I pull back my sheets, shuffle to the side and she slips into my bed, pressing her body against mine, tucking herself into my open arm. Again, I try to hold my breath, to steady my heartbeat for a moment. 

_Holy fucking shit._

Once, lying on the king-size bed in the Neptune Grand suite, she lay head on my chest, enmeshed in the crook of my arm and referred to it as “my nook.” So from that time, it was etched in my memory. It was, and would forever be, _her_ nook. A few ladies had crossed its path over the years, but they were never permitted to linger there. 

I certainly didn’t just let anyone nook.

Veronica starts to slip over the edge of the bed so I place my leg over hers, cementing her to me.

Bare leg against bare leg.

I spent years with this woman, draped over her endlessly and yet, now, I’m rendered incapacitated by her leg touching mine. The smell of her shampoo lingers just inches from my face and I lean down slightly to breathe in the familiar scent.

I don’t know why she’s here. Is it comfort, or is it _something more?_

All my body wants is _something more,_ to lean over and kiss her, to run my hands all over her bare skin. I stop myself from thinking those thoughts, I didn’t need my body to respond and frighten her away. I want to keep her here, like this, with me.

We say goodnight again and I close my eyes. Her breathing starts to slow, along with mine. The warmth and the familiarity of this relaxes my entire body and I realize with content that it suddenly feels like a puzzle piece, long lost for years, finally found, slots effortlessly back into its place. The puzzle is complete.

I have never been so happy to be in a tiny hotel bed in my life. 

As I drift into sleep, I can feel it, one of the friend zone walls is falling down and I don’t even try to prop it back up.


	3. Sunday

If you want to do a side-by-side reading here is the link to[ Sunday in Spinster Table](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/58026019)

* * *

**Sunday**

I awake to an empty bed and gaze around the room for my phantom cuddler. She has slipped away somehow without me realizing. There were times I awoke in the night almost just to check she was still there and relishing in the cuddles, the holding that bordered on desperate. If I moved, or released my grip in even the slightest way, Veronica came closer, snuggled tighter. 

_It was fucking incredible._

The shower starts running and I’m right back to last night, imagining a pile of her clothes on the floor, and I groan, turning over and burying my head under the pillow.

The hidden dangers associated with hotel sharing kept revealing themselves. Naked in adjacent rooms was deeply troubling.

My mouth is almost fused together and in desperate need of hydration and I could certainly do with brushing my teeth.

I sit up and feel that familiar room spin and stomach that has awoken after a night of drinking. I abort temporarily and collapse back onto the bed. Then, once steadied, make a bee-line for the bathroom.

Surely if she can wander into my bed (and of course, I graciously accept her with open arms), I can wander into the shower? There will be a curtain separating me from her naked form… unfortunately.

“Morning,” I groan and she echoes my greeting from under the stream.

I run the tap, drink the water directly from the faucet before loading up my toothbrush. My stomach churns again and I lean against the counter for support. 

“Ugh, that champagne, I feel like death,” I groan, toothbrush still in my mouth.

“It’s the bubbles. Poor Logan Echolls, can’t drink like you used to?” She teases me but her voice is a little more high-pitched than normal. I suspect she might be slightly thrown off by my presence, or possibly by what transpired last night. Both seem like legitimate concerns.

My eyes rise to look at myself in the mirror, but in my periphery, I can see that thin blue curtain. The only thing that separates me from heaven. There is a small crack, where the curtain meets the tiles and I can see movement, skin, steam. 

I’m not looking.

But also, I am.

Of course, I’ve seen her naked before, many, _many_ times. So much so that years later I can close my eyes and still see it, vividly. The image of it only distracts me seven to eight times a day, closer to thirty when I’m deployed. It’s a hard image to live with indeed, growing increasingly _harder._ I lean against the vanity to disguise it.

“Nope, I’ll need to condition myself more before the next wedding,” I reply and rinse my face under the water, the cold shocking me just enough to keep me focused and snap me out of my naked-friend-daydreaming. I wet my hands and run the water through my hair attempting to remedy my unfortunate bed hair. 

That half-inch curtain crack suddenly has movement behind it, an eye, the corner of a nose peeking out. I grin and look up at its reflection in the mirror. Veronica’s eye sees mine and I throw her a wink. Her eye opens wide and disappears into the steam.

I chuckle and stroll out of the bathroom.

She appears with sweats on and damp, limp hair dripping onto her shirt and it occurs to me that even better than her in that emerald dress is Veronica, wet. 

We pack our bags in silence. My eyes keep drifting to my bed, disheveled from squeezing two bodies in all night and hers, sitting beside it, mostly neat. It is physical evidence that bedsharing did, in fact, occur, even if we won't speak about it. I consider taking a picture so I can place it in front of Veronica’s nose in the future when she steadfastly refuses that this night ever happened. 

_Ha, ha, see! We spooned!_

She’s a lawyer, she relies on evidence.

I grab our bags, taking them to the cars while she checks out, then lean against hers, waiting. I’m getting those hot hangover chills and my stomach groans hungrily thinking about the greasy drive-through food that awaits me.

I finally speak, “So…”

“So…”

“Busy tonight?” I ask, because it’s all I really want to know. My allotted hours with her were dwindling.

“Oh, yes, I’ve got a hot date.”

I nod, “Movie at mine? No champagne,” I rub my stomach.

“Sounds good.”

I open the door for her and she hops inside, carefully avoiding my arm and my body in some fanciful wide berth. I shut the door and watch her drive away. 

* * *

I spend the day milling around, tidying my already borderline obsessively clean apartment. Doing the jobs I’d been putting off, because now, I have an end date here and I can't just keep ignoring things like this would go on forever.

When my stomach finally settles I go to the gym in an attempt to sweat out the alcohol and food. Lifting heavier and heavier weights. Each one I stack on, there only to help distract me from the heavy weight suddenly on my shoulders. 

I love my job. It’s something that I couldn’t even envision for myself ten years ago but it’s something that I need. It’s helped to keep me focused, disciplined and purposeful. Almost like a redemption for all of the shitty years, the terrible things I did, the terrible things done to me.

I can climb into the cockpit, takeoff and suddenly my mind is clear. Complete focus on my task takes over, I’m above the world, above all the bullshit that happens on earth. Power is suddenly in my hands, complete control and it’s almost freeing.

But right now, I’m just not ready to go back yet.

On my return, I pull out my duffle and place it on the floor. I stare at it for a while, make to pack some clothes, can't decide on anything, and swiftly withdraw from the task entirely. I opt instead to lay on the floor beside the bag, staring at the ceiling.

_I’m not ready._

There is a distinct feeling of unfinished business that envelops me, like I’m leaving something behind. I run my fingers through the cream shag carpeting that I hate. Back and forth, back and forth. Until I eventually fall asleep, completely exhausted from all of last night’s developments.

* * *

The green curry is delicious and Veronica helps herself to more, with another generous scoop of coconut rice. She then drinks her beer with small, deliberate sips and I take some careful glances at her long neck as she tips it.

Veronica wants to watch Pulp Fiction, again.

“We watched Pulp Fiction on my last leave. Surely we can find something else we haven’t watched forty-five times?”

She pouts, full lower lip pout. I cock my head to the side and sigh. It wasn’t like I had a real choice anyway.

“Sure, whatever,” I relent.

She does a little dance, I’ve coined it the _winners_ dance. She does that dance _a lot._ Clearly, I’m a sucker.

My mind is still reeling from last night. I was pretty sure my concentration levels on anything would be dismal anyway.

I wanted answers. But I wasn’t even sure what the questions were.

Why did you climb into my bed, Veronica? Why did I just lie there? Why can’t I focus on _anything_ else when she is in the room?

Why? Why? Why?

Frustrated, I flop down on the couch with my ice-cream, flipping my legs up and onto Veronica’s lap. She crosses her eyes at me and she nudges against them, complaining. But it’s not a hard nudge, she doesn’t try _that_ hard to move me off her.

Sorry Veronica, my legs are going to stay right here.

 _You_ broke the cardinal rule of no-touching last night, and now I’m not sure I can _stop_ touching.

Any contact is suddenly deemed good contact as far as I’m concerned, even if it’s purely platonic leg draping.

I grin and shovel more ice-cream into my mouth.

She gives up and rests her bowl on my legs, the cold penetrating through the ceramic feels cool against my legs. It’s a nice contrast to the warmth of her lap below me. 

We’re watching Pulp Fiction and John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson are driving, discussing the merits of overseas takeout establishments. “No man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.” Veronica’s mouth moves silently, following the dialogue with intensity.

All the while she eats her ice-cream like it’s her last meal. The spoon dips in, it raises to her mouth and it opens wide to devour more. “Then what do they call it?”

“They call it a Royale with cheese.” I see the ice cream sitting on her tongue as she mimics with her mouth full.

“Royale with cheese. What’d they call a Big Mac?” She makes the hand gestures too, and the little John Travolta smirk.

“Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.”

She chuckles and heaps another mouthful in, a solitary drip of chocolate trickles down almost to her chin and I watch it intently, my hand starts to rise to wipe it but she beats me and her pink tongue whips out and it disappears.

I’ve got to admit, I’m disappointed.

I force my eyes back to the television.

Veronica works at the bowl, her spoon loudly clanging and scraping lest she miss out on any of those pesky last drips.

Eyes directly on the screen, she lifts the spoon to her lips, her tongue runs up the metal slowly and carefully. Then, she spins the spoon around and performs the same intriguing treatment to the other side.

_Holy Shit._

Why can’t she just _eat_ the fucking ice cream? Put it in her mouth like a normal person? She’s killing me here. 

A jolt runs right through me and my cock twitches involuntarily. Instantly shifting to cover it, I place my hand over my lap and smile as casually as possible.

“Please, don’t let me stop you,” I offer.

She wipes at her face, “Do I have chocolate all over my face?”

“No,” I reply, trying to keep my face as stoic as possible.

_But if you did, I’d lick it off._

I lean towards her, taking her face in my hands and running my tongue over the corner of her lips, tasting the chocolate sauce, the sugary crystals, tasting _her_. Then I bring our lips together in a passionate kiss, our tongues battle. I pull her by her legs onto me and she nestles herself onto my lap, straddling me. I won’t break the kiss, can't break the kiss. Her fingertips graze at my stomach and she starts edging my shirt off…

_No._

_Stop._

Of course, none of these things _actually_ happen, but my imagination sure knows how to conjure up a scenario particularly uncomfortable when in close proximity to your friend. Veronica is once again engrossed in the movie, seemingly unsuspecting of anything.

Those thoughts are _not_ helping Logan. 

Think unsexy thoughts. Baseball, old people, hedgehogs.

I was very good at this. Some days with Veronica I spent _all day_ thinking unsexy thoughts. It was tiring. Then, I’d peel myself off her couch, ride my bike home, go straight into the shower and let myself think _all_ the thoughts I’d been suppressing all day. It was _not_ a healthy way to conduct a friendship.

I look at the television, because I can’t keep watching her. Desperately trying to focus on John Travolta and Uma Thurman.

But, I can’t.

Suddenly, sitting on the couch with my best friend is _too much._ My legs fidget involuntarily. I close my eyes. I don’t know what else to do, where else to hide.

Finding solace in the blackness, if not from my own errant thoughts, I finally find sleep, my legs growing heavy on Veronica’s lap.

* * *

We awake to a blue screen and peel ourselves from our couch positions. Veronica does that cute stretch and heads for her jacket. I panic for a moment and invite her to stay because it’s late and, well, nook. 

Only fifteen hours left.

This bedsharing, however questionable, exponentially increased my allotted time with her, how could I possibly let her leave?

Thankfully she agrees and I find her some clothes and a fresh toothbrush and leave her to get ready alone. I pace around the living room twelve times which I calculate should be more than sufficient to change before knocking and re-entering the room.

Veronica stands at the edge of the bed nervously, looking at the covers but not daring to go in them just yet. She’s wearing my t-shirt and shorts, which for some reason is alluring in ways I cannot comprehend.

I motion to the bed, trying to reassure her.

“What no pillow mints?” she pretends to search the pillow, and diffuse the tension in the air.

“If you’re expecting turndown service and clean sheets, you’ve come to the wrong hotel.”

“I’m fine,” she says, “unless…” she pauses, looking at the sheets with mild horror.

“Relax, I’ve barely had two orgies here this week, you know, I’ve been busy.”

“Only two, geez, you’ve lost form.”

“Tell me about it,” I reply. Nervous banter to avoid awkwardness - there is a strong possibility we could go pro in it.

We climb under the sheets and I spread out my legs a little, accidentally on purpose grazing against her own bare one wearing _my shorts._

Think unsexy thoughts: Baseball, twinkies, Danny DeVito.

We lie in silence together surrounded by darkness for the second night in a row, Veronica on her back, me facing her on my side. 

I shuffle around, while in my head debating with myself. Why did you ask her to stay? To just lie in bed? Are you going to make a move? Are you going to lie there like a dead fish? What the fuck are you doing Echolls? What are you trying to achieve? Why do you keep asking yourself an endless stream of annoying fucking questions?

“Come here,” finally leaves my lips. See, it wasn’t that hard.

“Okay,” she replies quietly. I open out my arms, Veronica nestles into the crook of my arm.

In an instant, that feeling washes over me again, the warmth and comfort. Her long hair tickles against my bare arm and shoulder and she burrows into my nook. I reach my arm around her back and rest my hand on her stomach, all the while taking deep breaths to try and steady my racing heart rate.

There is something intimate about bedsharing that went beyond sex, at least for me. I for one, knew that I was capable of having sex with a woman and having zero desire to have them share a bed with me. Of course, with Veronica it’s different, with Veronica _everything_ is different. 

Veronica seems so relaxed, her breathing levels and she seems to drift off to sleep quickly. Clearly, this closeness isn’t affecting her in the same way it is me. My eyes slowly start to droop, all the while feeling another wall of the friendzone crumbling down. Friends may accidentally cuddle, while slightly drunk at a wedding _once_ , but following it up for a second night, that meant something else entirely.


	4. Monday

If you want to do a side-by-side reading here is the link to [Monday in Spinster Table](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/58085452)

* * *

**Monday**

Veronica’s alarm is buzzing furiously. I have my arms wrapped around her, she is my little spoon. She starts to shuffle away from me, trying to reach it.

I was mildly relieved as it got me out of my _situation._ Veronica, me, limbs, skin, morning. All of this added up to a painful surge in my nether regions, one that felt as though it had been present for hours. The ache of it permeated through my entire body.

“Hi,” I rub my eyes and break the ice with my smooth conversational skills.

“Hi.”

There is one thing about snuggles in the night time, but it's rather jarring in the day. It's like the presence of sunlight somehow encourages the addressing of said snuggles. Well, theoretically.

But not us, that wasn’t our style.

Awkward glances, stilted conversation, _that_ was more our style

I look around the room for somewhere to hide, but there is nowhere.

My eyes find Veronica’s, looking equally as nervous as mine.

“I’ve gotta go … you know, work,” Veronica stutters out, flinging her legs out of the bed. She starts to stretch her arms but seems to stop herself, like stretching is too casual for this questionable situation we find ourselves in. Her hair sticks up in various directions but a curious flat spot remains on one side, I do believe that is the nook spot.

I prop myself on the pillow and place my arms behind my head as if I’m completely unflustered by all these interactions. Of course, this is a complete and total lie. I congratulate myself on being the master of deception via body language. 

Veronica leans over in _my_ shorts and shirt and picks up her pile of clothes off the floor and sprints into the bathroom.

The second she leaves the bed I glance at the ruffled sheets beside me, already thinking about tonight. Hoping, praying that somehow the universe would align and this would eventuate again.

I throw on some clothes and tap at the bathroom door before speaking. “Feel free to leave the toothbrush out,” I pause, considering the next words, then throw caution to the wind and dare to say them, “you know, for next time.”

Baby steps.

Waiting outside the door all I hear is silence before a brief, strained “Okay,” in response.

I brew some coffee for her and she appears, dressed in yesterday's clothes. 

“How was your stay at Echoll’s B&B?” I ask.

“Very satisfactory thank you.”

_At the Echolls B &B we provide spooning. _

“Please be sure to review us online.”

_And nooks!_

She gives me a brief glare while crouching down and lacing up her shoes.

“I’ve got coffee coming.”

_All night long._

“I’m going to have to run, I’ve got to go home and get changed. Pretty sure jeans won't cut it at work.”

I nod, almost saying something about a walk of shame but stopping myself. Best to not spook her any further. I pour her coffee into a plastic travel mug and hand it to her.

Veronica looks at it, tilting her head to inspect the writing on the side of the mug, it reads ‘I hate being sexy but I’m a fighter pilot so I can’t help it.’ It was in the ever offensive Comic Sans font, so she was more than welcome to keep the hideous thing. Should I offer it as a memento of evening canoodling?

She stares at the mug, then me, deadpan. A hint of an eye roll lingers.

_Probably not._

“It was a gift!” I explain.

_It was._

“What, from Logan to Logan?”

I laugh, “You want the coffee or not?”

Veronica takes a sip and decides to leave well enough alone. Apparently, caffeine trumps ridicule.

The kitchen falls quiet again, she takes her coat and bag. Standing, shifting her weight from foot to foot, rocking a little. Like she wants to leave, but also doesn’t. 

_Say something about last night, Logan, do it!_

“Ummm… lunch?”

_Tremendously articulate, Logan. Great job._

“Yep,” she seems clipped and keeps darting her eyes back to the front door. 

“Cool. See ya.” She starts to walk out the door but pauses, adding, “Thanks … for the clothes and the … okay bye,” and she ducks out the door.

_We certainly addressed that elephant in the room._

I walk back into my bedroom, looking at the disheveled bed and the borrowed clothes left in a neatly folded stack on the covers. 

Another bed of evidence to add to the file.

The duffel still sat in the same spot on the floor as I left it yesterday. I take a wide berth, avoiding it completely only to glance back. The zip and the top flap of the bag seemed to make a face with eyes and a sinister frown, like it was glaring at me. 

“What are you looking at motherfucker?” I’ll get to you eventually, unfortunately.

It was only Monday and I was yelling at inanimate objects, clearly, things were tense.

* * *

I packed absolutely nothing and instead opted to surf with Dick before going downtown to see Marla.

She invites me into her office and I recline on the chaise, it’s not until I sit that I realize my boardshorts are still quite damp. I didn’t have time to change after the beach.

She positions herself on her swivel chair, notepad in lap, pen in hand, and a familiar wry smile. Motioning for me to begin, she wants me to start the session, so that I’m directing what we discuss each week.

“I’m leaving on Thursday.”

_Wait for it._

“And how does that make you feel?” Marla asks, voice hoarse and deep.

I suspect she either did, or still does, have a standing date with a pack of Marlboro Reds.

Marla is my therapist and has been for almost two years now. She’s in her early sixties and dresses like an artist, willowy and eclectic with yellow glasses perched at the end of her nose. I’m pretty sure her dress today is made from black plastic bags and pipe cleaners. She doesn’t look like a therapist, she looks like someone who sells her paintings made from the juice of dried, foraged berries on the sidewalk. Eccentric, and then some. Strangely enough, Veronica had recommended her, she used to be one of her professors at Stanford and had since gone back into private practice. 

Despite my early reservations of divulging my deepest and darkest to a sidewalk crackpot, she had proved herself to be a perceptive and sharp-witted woman, whose only flaw was suffering from questionable dress sense. She had a habit of indulging my bullshit for a while, just to the point I thought I was getting away with it, then merrily and savagely calling me out on it.

_Just like someone else I know._

I can’t get away with anything around here.

When I’d first given Marla the once-over on the Echoll’s family history and subsequent nightmare that was Neptune itself, she silently scoffed in disbelief. We laughed about it later, but, she was right, you couldn’t write this stuff if you wanted to. My life was a soap-opera come horror movie and now I’d entered some kind of weird, quiet, middle ground. 

But today, like every Monday, she’s asking how it makes me feel. 

I think about it, trying to turn my thoughts and feelings into words that truly encapsulate them is one of the hardest challenges of therapy for me. The thoughts are _there,_ but sometimes I feel like I can’t reach them.

“Fucking mad.”

“Why does it make you mad?”

“Because I don't want to leave.”

“The entire basis of your career is being absent Logan, this is not new information.”

“I am aware of that.”

“So what’s different this time?”

“Everything. Nothing.” I pick at a stray thread hanging from my shorts.

“Because of Veronica?” she pulls her pen back and hesitates, waiting for my answer.

I shrug.

_Hit the nail on the head first go. That's why I pay you the big bucks._

She doesn't speak, instead rocking her pen back and forth between her fingers as she waits for me to elaborate.

“Leaving’s always difficult, but, at the same time I have work to look forward to, and I normally love it, I really do. But, I don't know.... This time things seem different, unfinished.”

“And that makes you mad?”

I nod, “I’m mad at myself for having to leave, choosing this career. Mad at myself for not telling her how I feel, mad at myself for everything really. I hate leaving. What if something happens to her – she’s drawn to danger. What if things change between us? What if she finds someone else?”

“That’s a lot of what-ifs, Logan.”

“There are more if you want them?”

The corners of her mouth almost crack into a smile but she nods, eyebrows raised at me like a petulant child. She’s quickly learned to ignore the snark that I throw back at her. We discussed the snark for nearly a whole month, it was a riveting deep-dive to be sure. _Why do you feel the need to respond to questions directed at you with_ _mocking irreverence Logan?_

Good times.

“The list of things you just gave me, how many of those things do you have control over? Maybe it's time to surrender to those things you can't control and change the things you can?” She pushes her glasses back up her nose and squints at me through the thick glass.

“So, by that, you mean telling Veronica?”

“You said it, not me,” she replies, her eyebrows raising at me in that smug knowing, you-just-healed-yourself kind of way. 

I chuckle and shuffle in my seat, tapping my feet on the floor. I don't respond, just letting myself think about what Marla has said. The feeling of dread starts to creep down my throat into my stomach. 

“Okay, so you know what you _can_ control, let's talk about the things you _can't_ control. You're not responsible for anyone's wellbeing or actions while you’re here or when you're deployed. I understand you feel the need to be overprotective because you didn’t feel like you could control or protect anything in your youth. You didn’t feel like you could protect yourself, your mother, Veronica from her rape, Lilly from her murder and the list goes on,” her attention to my life story is fastidious. Names, dates, events - she remembers it all.

“You bear the whole world on your shoulders, Logan but you are just one man. One strong and competent man, yes, but a man who doesn't need to live with the burdens he puts upon himself. The biggest part of healing, the hardest part of healing is letting go, being okay with the world, okay to just live, to be. Relinquish the need for control over everything and you will find that your anger at the world may just abate.”

I stay silent, the air grows a little heavier. Again, I’m struggling to find words.

“Tell me, when you are away, do you worry about your _own_ life? For your safety when _you_ , yourself, are doing the most dangerous thing of all the people you’re most concerned about?”

I chuckle, “No.” then I think for a minute, “I guess I worry about the fallout if something happened to me, but I’m not really worried about myself. Just everyone at home, how that would affect them.”

“That's going to need to change Logan.”

“I can try,” I shrug.

“You must try. Therapy is about overcoming your past but also valuing your future. In some sense, you wouldn’t be here, with me today, if you didn’t see a future for yourself, an opportunity to better yourself. So I think, without you realizing it, you’re slowly coming to value your own life, even if you can't see it yet.”

I offer more silence, which I can see frustrates her.

“Can I ask a question?” she asks.

“Isn't that what I’m paying you for?”

“Why are you more scared of telling a woman that you love her than risking your own life?”

I chuckle at the summation of my predicament.

“I don't know if I’d necessarily put it in those terms, but, I guess you might be correct.”

I don't say it out loud, but of course, Marla knows it. She’s trained to. Everyone knows it, it seems, everyone except Veronica.

A life without her is no life at all. I’ve tried it before, I know it first hand.

“You’re a brave guy Logan, you do brave things each day for your country. Now it’s time to be brave for _you_ , take the leap, control the things you can.”

I screw up my face, skeptically, finding that stray thread on my shorts again and pulling it out.

“I think, if you do, you won't be quite so mad anymore.”

I hope she’s right.

* * *

“You look like a beach boys song,” Veronica muses as she reaches across the plastic table to dust some sand from my hair, it falls and freckles the table.

We both stare at it for a moment before resuming our taco lunch. 

“What are you doing this afternoon?” she asks.

I pick up some pieces of fallen taco innards and pop them into my mouth, “packing,” I say quietly, because I don't want to think about it. The duffel still sits empty on my floor, the evil fucker.

She doesn’t respond and we resume eating in silence. My eyes keep finding ways to float back to her face, like I want to absorb it, to remember all its soft curves and gentle lines before it's robbed from me for months.

“Do you know where you are going?” she asks tentatively.

“Yes,” I’d gotten my further orders this morning. It was irrelevant anyway, wherever it was, it wasn’t here.

“Can you tell me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You know I can’t, Veronica.”

The gentle lines turn into dark crevices as she scrunches up her face at me in anger, like she might scare me into telling her.

“Is it far?”

I chuckle and reply, “It’s always far.”

“Is it somewhere dangerous?” she asks, concern etched in her brow. 

Doesn’t she realize that sitting here with her, two feet away from this incredible woman is far more dangerous to me than a war zone could ever be?

I don't answer.

We trek the few blocks back to Veronica’s office, bellies full and walking considerably slower away from lunch, it seemed, than we walked to it. Veronica was setting the pace, which seemed to slow more and more as we continued. 

Fourteen hours left.

I wonder if her decreasing speed is related to a desire to avoid work, or an effort to prolong our time together. I hope for the latter.

As fellow pedestrians pass by, I move left to let them bypass, each time my bare arm grazes Veronica’s bare arm. I tell myself it’s an inadvertent touch, a happy accident, but, at this point, who am I kidding? 

_Lies._

I’m not ashamed to say I want arm touching and will find any excuse to execute it. Each time it happens it's warm and brief and makes me feel alive. Veronica also seems to have a positive response, on our last touch her eyes flutter closed for just a moment and she touches at that spot on her arm briefly. I look down and see goosebumps freckling the contact point. 

_She feels it too._

My cheeks crack into a grin and I marvel at the sensation of falling in love with the same girl, over and over again. 

“How was therapy?” Veronica asks, knowing about my standing Monday appointment.

“It was … challenging.”

“Good, it’s supposed to be.”

“You know the territory, the old Echolls psyche who knows what kind of sick and twisted wonders lurk within?”

She raises her eyebrows and shakes her head at me.

“Come on, would _you_ want to crack open this coconut and look inside?” I ask.

“Oh, it's not that bad,” Veronica brushes her hand in the air.

“Have we met?”

She chuckles and as her building comes into eyesight I definitely feel her gait slow again, there is a distinct possibility that we may actually be walking in reverse. Fine with me, I’m just going to go with the flow. I could make this walk take all day long if need be…

“Logan,” she hesitates, “I never suggested therapy because I thought you were broken. I hope you don't think that?”

“It’s fine, really.”

She remains unconvinced, “I just want you to feel like you deserve life. You deserve love…” As the word exits her mouth she seems to panic, her eyes dart, she is looking to backtrack. “You’re my best friend. I just want you to be happy.”

_Love. Her word, not mine._

“I _am_ happy,” with you.

She seems satisfied with my answer, at least on the surface, “What was Marla wearing today?”

“I want to say garbage bag chic? Black plastic, some kind multi-colored craft items on top?”

Veronica chuckles, “I know the one. She likes to recycle.”

“That she does.”

“Did you tell her about the wedding?” she asks _very_ casually with zero eye contact.

“Yeah, she asked,” I reply, equally as casually.

“Cool, cool.”

I laugh, “Yep, cool.”

Veronica is fishing to see if I told Marla about things that happened. 

Nook things. 

I didn’t. It felt like verbalizing it, to someone outside our little duo, would taint it somehow. It was our secret, and I kept it that way. Anyway, I’m not sure what I would say anyway. Oh, you know, we’ve just started spooning at night and not addressing it. No big deal.

That would most certainly lead to a therapy black hole into _why_ and I wasn’t ready to explore that just yet.

“So… Do I need to make a reservation at Hotel Echolls or can I just stop by and see if there is a vacancy?” she asks with a wink as we pause outside the revolving doors to her firm.

_Holy shit. YES!_

“It’s actually a B&B,” I reply.

_Shut up, Logan._

“You’re all about the details, aren’t you?”

“It’s not me, it’s the tax laws. Ownership of a hotel charges much higher state tax for operation, legalities, public liability insurance…”

_Why can I not shut up?_

She blinks, unmoving, “How have I not murdered you yet?”

I wink back and shrug. “No reservations are required, at the B&B, that is,” I reply.

“Okay, catch you later?”

“Bye.”

Veronica wiggles her fingers in a wave, turns and wanders back into the building like a breeze of warm summer air.

If it wasn’t completely unmanly, I would have skipped all the way home.

\-------

I changed and put on my special blue t-shirt. It's just plain dark blue with a v neck, but it runs a little on the tighter side. It’s fast becoming my favorite because I like the way Veronica’s face smirks and her gaze lingers when she sees it. I have a sneaking suspicion it might be her favorite too.

I haven’t eaten dinner, as I’m waiting for Veronica. She often would get caught up late at work, so I wasn’t particularly concerned. But time was passing by, it was now well past eight. We were on a time crunch here and this delay was seriously cutting into my allotted Veronica allowance. 

I curse the judicial system. 

When I put my third beer to my lips, the phone finally pings.

 **8.45pm – From Veronica:** Stuck in office, deposition all night. ☹ Raincheck for tomorrow?

_No, you can’t cancel your reservation at Echolls’ B &B! _

**8.45pm – From Logan:** Really??

 **8.45pm – from Veronica:** Really…

_Fucking fuck!_

**8.46pm – from Logan:** What am I going to do with the three-course meal I prepared?

 **8.46pm – From Veronica:** Ha-ha

 **8.46pm – From Logan:** Do I watch movie solo, or wait?

 **8.47pm – From Veronica:** Which movie?

 **8.47pm – From Logan:** Big Lebowski

 **8.47pm – from Veronica:** You WAIT!

 **8.48pm – From Logan:** Message Received.

Of course, I would never watch the movie without her, I had no desire for homicide tonight. I flick aimlessly through the channels and settle on something Veronica would most definitely hate. 

I was so damn disappointed, hours were being robbed from me along with the possibility of nook. 

_FUCK!_

Now I had to think about finding some sustenance. I get up from the couch and poke around my bare cupboards, because why would you re-stock when you’re about to leave? 

I _should_ be eating grilled chicken and broccoli but I settle with a half-stale piece of bread with cheese and a bag of mini peanut butter cups. I was too far gone now. I’d made friends with carbs again, despite my best efforts to avoid them. I was ready to die on my bread and potato cross.

I wash all of this down with more beer, because maybe I’m drowning my sorrows, maybe because I’m acting like a stood-up character from a 90’s rom-com. 

Picking up the phone again, I stare at it. 

_What to write? What to write?_

I’m feeling the need to seek out some clarity on the bed sharing that’s transpired of late. There is a sense of safety hiding behind text messages. She can't see me, she can’t read my eyes, I can avoid her gaze. 

Fuck it, I write the message.

 **9.36pm – from Logan:** But seriously, what am I going to do? Who will I cuddle with tonight?

I put the phone screen side down on the coffee table, lest I be tempted to check it as I await her reply.

I distract myself by making a bowl of ice-cream and throw a few more peanut butter cups on top for good measure. Yes, I’m _definitely_ living in a 90’s rom-com. 

**9.39pm – From Veronica:** I do not know what you are talking about.

Classic deflection. Veronica Mars 101. Books could be written about this shit. Trilogies!

 **9.39pm – From Logan:** Fine, deny it.

 **9.40pm – From Veronica:** Do I need to go over the rules? We DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT.

I chuckle and continue to stir the pot. 

**9.41pm – from Logan:** WE ARE NOT TALKING (technically)

 **9.43pm – from Veronica:** I’m very busy and important. Leave me alone.

 **9.43pm – From Logan:** Yeah yeah. Still haven’t solved my cuddle dilemma…

I take another mouthful of my dessert. As the spoon crosses my lips I’m transported back to last night, her lips licking ice cream off a spoon just like this one. I ponder if it is, in fact, the _same_ spoon. 

Somehow, the next bite tastes even better.

Cutlery related hard-ons were a new and troubling development.

 **9.45pm – From Logan:** I’m eating ice cream.

 **9.46pm – From Veronica:** I’m working… or at least attempting to. Keep. Getting. Interrupted.

_Do it, Logan, see what happens. Throw caution to the wind! Dare to divulge your spoon related fantasies._

**9.46pm – From Logan:** I’m thinking about your spoon last night…

As soon as I press send, I panic. Bad idea, don’t scare her. I throw the phone on the couch well away from me. I can’t be trusted to send text messages.

I’m going to go out on a limb and blame the peanut butter cups for that one… that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. Sugar, ice cream and nonsensical thoughts run through me, all giving me a light nudge to make direct sexual referrals. Dangerous territory.

And of course, talking about the spoon, makes me think about the spoon… a lot. 

I stretch out, adjusting my pants to accommodate. 

But Veronica doesn’t reply, no pings come from the corner of the couch. She’s referring back to evasion. Of course, she could _actually_ be working, but somehow that doesn’t cross my mind.

I press play and continue watching Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, because having my t-shirts folded in color order really does spark joy. 

When Netflix rudely asks me if I’m still watching, I collect the phone again.

 **10.25pm – From Logan:** Fine, ignore me

 **10.27pm – From Logan:** Veronica?

 **10.33pm – From Logan:** …..??

She has read all of the messages but hasn’t responded. I turn off the television and resign to go to bed.

 **11.17pm – From Logan:** Going to bed now. All alone. ☹

 **11.19pm –From Veronica:** Are you trying to make me think about you in bed?

Yes! _Now_ she’s playing the game. About fucking time.

 **11.20pm – From Logan:** Maybe … Is it working?

 **11.20pm – from Veronica:** Maybe

Deep breaths Logan. In and out.

I take off all my clothes, leaving only my boxer shorts on and slip into the lonely sheets. I try to will myself some patience, staring at the blue light of my screen illuminating the bedroom. 

I message again.

 **11.27pm – From Logan:** Okay I’m in bed now

 **11.28pm – From Veronica:** What are you wearing?

 **11.28pm – From Veronica:** Sorry, typo. Ignore.

I snort, ungracefully. The thought of Veronica asking me that in bed stirs me in ways I don't want to address, alone.

She is slowly but surely joining me on the dark side. 

**11.28pm – From Logan:** Interesting typo??

 **11.29pm – From Veronica:** Goodnight Logan

 **11.29pm – From Logan:** Goodnight Veronica X.

Friends in the friendzone can finish messages with an X, right? I think I read that somewhere.

I flick off the lamp and lay in the blackness. Tossing and turning, muscles tense, a torrent of thoughts stream through my consciousness. Overthinking. Over analyzing. Pondering the wonders of the universe. But really, why don't octopuses get tangled in their own tentacles? Or is it octopi?

Riveting stuff.

All because I’m once again alone. Ridiculous really, considering I’ve been flying solo in the sheets for the better part of two years. Then suddenly, two nights with Veronica and I’m like a drug addict, dependence on her beside me comes swiftly. 

I wonder if she’s still awake?

 **12.41am – From Logan:** I can’t sleep

 **12.43am – From Veronica:** Have a glass of milk. Count sheep?

 **12.44am – From Logan:** Not working.

 **12.44am – From Logan:** Have been conditioned to be held to sleep.

 **12.45am – From Veronica:** Good News, in 3 days you’ll have a whole shipload of friends to cuddle you to sleep.

 **12.46am – From Logan:** Not. Funny.

_It’s really not._

**12.46am – From Logan:** Are you seriously STILL WORKING? Or are you just avoiding me?

 **12.47am – From Veronica:** Still working… clearly not avoiding you…

 **12.47am – From Logan:** When you finish, feel free to come by. You know where the spare key is.

_Please come, Veronica._

_Please._

**12.48am – From Veronica:** Goodnight Logan. X

I stare at the little X and decide that a reciprocated X is most definitely a friendzone wall destroyer.

I was tense and it appears there would be no nook tonight to soothe my ache. 

I lay in the sheets and think of that emerald dress, it's etched in my brain. I let my mind unzip it and it falls to the floor. Of course, she’s wearing nothing underneath. A groan escapes my lips. I’m already hard, painfully so. It’s been that way all night. From the texting, from the ice cream…

I need to relieve the tension, if she enters my bed when I’m like _this_ our spoons can’t be disguised as anywhere near platonic. 

I think of the time when Veronica was mine and she ran her cool fingers down my chest, snaking her fingertips through the patch of hair below my navel and taking me in her hands. My hand wraps as hers did around my length and finds its rhythm. Slowly, achingly, the skin moves back and forth. My body arches to the touch in the darkness. Eyes squeezed shut to envision her face, my breath growing increasingly ragged, the rate increases. My release is rapid and strained, aimed to relieve the tension, but, in reality, relieves none at all. I wipe the evidence away and listen for the key in the lock.

The sound never comes.


	5. Tuesday

If you want to do a side-by-side reading here is the link to [Tuesday in Spinster Table](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/58085497)

(This is a particularly fun one to read side-by-side - As always I recommend Veronica's version first)

* * *

I bob in the water, waiting for a decent wave, scrabbling with the zip at the base of my neck that keeps itching. My eyes sting from lack of sleep or maybe it's the saltwater. All I know is that sleep, alone in my bed was futile and my mind-racing antics weren’t assisting at all.

Keith holds my board with one hand as a wave lumbers beneath us, we float side by side over the crest. The surf today is choppy, green and limp, a strong north-westerly is hampering any chance of feet to wax.

“How was the wedding?” he asks.

“Yeah, it was good.”

Keith nods prudently and grins, eyebrows raised, “Good, or I don't want to hear the details good?”

I cringe a little, it's like hearing your Dad talk about sex. “Just regular old good. I promise nothing happened that would scar you for life.”

He scrunches up his face but seems a little disappointed. 

I’ve grown quite comfortable with Keith Mars. There is no question that he certainly was never the president of the Logan Echolls Fan Club, but now… maybe he could be the secretary? He met me most mornings at our regular spot. After his accident he used swimming as his physiotherapy, he would swim laps back and forth, rest, chat with me, and then resume his freestyle. It was a companionable relationship that seemed to grow without me realizing it. 

We’d bonded over our shared love of the waves, golf and baseball and it had been cemented over cold hot dogs and warm beer in the stands. My heart doesn’t let many people in, and those I do, are on a tight leash. I know firsthand that you can have twenty blood relatives and feel little to no connection, but then meet one person and it is as though you have found your family. Sometimes between Keith and Veronica, I feel like an honorary Mars’ member.

But, as much as Keith was now my friend, I saw no need to divulge details of late night spooning. I had a strong suspicion that nook-tales and overprotective Dads of the ex-cop variety did not make the most wise combination.

“How were Wallace and Shae?”

“They were great, you know, in love, barely looking away from each other, all the usual stuff.”

Keith throws me a speculative, wet side-eye.

“Was anyone else there I know?”

“There were a few old school friends, but no one exciting. Mac was in Amsterdam for a conference and couldn’t come.” I weed it out, making him wait before providing the information I know he wants. “Alicia looked good,” I say casually, waggling my eyebrows at him, “Blue dress, heels… no partner in sight.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“She tore up the dancefloor solo.”

“Hmmm… interesting,” he says before diving under an incoming foamy wave. I float over it on my board and wait for him to reappear. Who says you can't find love (again) over 60?

Keith breaks the surface and runs his hand over his bald head, scraping away the water.

“I’m leaving on Thursday, got the call.”

“Ahhh, shit.” Keith scrunches up his nose. “How did she take it?” He knows, of course, that Veronica doesn’t find my absences particularly easy. 

I shrug, still itching my neck, “She seemed okay, I guess. A bit sad, but… I dunno.”

“So you’re just going to leave, for _months_ , with no resolution?” Keith Mars, ninja kicking through the bullshit since 2003. Well, with his good hip at least.

I scratch at the stubble on my chin and shrug with a resigned sigh. 

“Far be it for me to tell you what to do,” Keith muses with a wry smirk and I laugh at the irony. He chuckles back, “but maybe things would be easier if you actually talked to her. You know, do it old school. Back in my day, if we liked a girl, we asked her out, we took her out, necked a bit at Henderson’s Bluff, you know the rest. Communicate Logan, before it’s too late. Sure beats sitting out in the waves with me.” Mr. Sage advice, giving sage advice, what a shocker. I had to admit, I didn’t _hate_ the idea of necking.

I sigh as we peak over another unbroken wave. “All we do is talk Keith, _around_ everything. I say it's black, she argues, says its purple, she calls me an idiot, threatens to murder me and hide the body, I call her a blonde etcetera, etcetera.”

“I’ve been in the room Logan, _please,_ you don’t need to remind me,” he pauses, “just be honest.”

“What if being honest robs me of my best friend, of everything?” I ask because I genuinely want to know the answer. 

Keith shakes his head quickly, “I have a sneaking suspicion it won’t.”

A glimmer of something (is it hope?) tingles down my spine. “Is your _sneaking suspicion_ based on general speculation or hard facts?” 

Has Veronica been talking about me, to her Dad?

“I would never sell out my daughter’s trust, Logan.”

“Of course,” I nod. 

Keith responds by raising his eyebrows and nodding at me. His eyes lock with mine as if he’s transporting classified information through telepathy, “Just trust me.”

“Okay.” I respond, my mind racing with this new, completely unconfirmed wordless transaction.

“And, it goes without saying, we never had this conversation.” 

“What conversation? As _if_ I would paddle around each day with a crusty old PI?”

He chuckles, sculling water, “Exactly, as _if_ I’d hang out with my daughter’s washed up ex-boyfriend.” He starts to breast-stroke towards the shore. “So no golf on Friday then?”

“Sorry, count me out,” I say, disappointed.

“That’s a shame, I was really looking forward to beating you … again,” he chuckles to himself at the sheer brilliance of the Dad-burn he just dealt.

I rub my shoulder, “It was my bad arm.”

“Yeah, it looks _really_ terrible.” His arms reach out before him, stretch and pull back in the cool of the pacific ocean. 

“Tomorrow?” I call out.

He nods ”I want to hear how the talking goes… but _only_ the talking,” he calls out and keeps swimming to the shore.

* * *

I conceded and threw a couple of pairs of underwear in the duffle bag, hopefully that would keep the grumpy fucker happy for a while. 

All the while musing the happenings of the past few days. It seemed that all and sundry had an opinion about how to proceed. Keith thought I should do it, Marla thought I should do it, hell, even _Dick_ thought I should. 

Advice from trusted confidants collated and analyzed, it was clear. Get off your ass Logan, be a man, get the girl. 

We had gone too far last night (even if it was only digitally), _but also not far enough,_ we were teetering on the edge of something and today was the day to push myself off the precipice. 

My empty bed cemented it last night. Something was missing and something had to be done about it.

Fuck it, I only had about nine hours left.

The phone rings, it’s about time.

“Mars,” I answer.

“Echolls.” The sound of her voice cements my plan, “What’s up?” 

“The usual. Packing, preparations, procrastination.” Well, the last one was accurate at least.

“Sounds about right. Did you end up getting any sleep last night?” She asks casually. 

“Eventually,” I lie, rubbing my eyes, “Did you get your work finished?”

“Yes, thank God! I think I’ll even get to finish a bit early today.” 

_Thank fuck for that!_

“Great! I’m thinking bar? I need to enjoy some alcoholic beverages before months of deprivation,” _and to get the courage to actually make this move._

She groans in response. It _should_ be annoying if it wasn’t one of my favorite noises from her mouth.

We needed to go out. If I wanted something to change, we had to be out of our comfort zone. If we were firmly planted in our butt grooves on the couch it was easy to get lost in the old friendzone routine.

“Come on… We don’t have to stay long. Please? Chicken wings, jalapeno poppers, mozzarella sticks, beer?” Luring Veronica with greasy, spicy food, it's an easy sell.

“Fine,” she relents.

“Usual place?”

“Yep. Six?”

“Sounds good, and walk. No cars tonight. We’re drinking,” I offer.

“OK.”

We’re quiet for a moment.

“Hey Logan,” she asks, like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, “how was that ice-cream?”

Now it’s my turn to groan. 

“Fucking delicious,” I reply honestly, while visions of sugar drips danced in my head.

* * *

Buoyed by the prospect of dinner I make an effort to sort things for my impending departure. Dick rode along as I went for a fresh buzz cut, I readied checks and envelopes for Veronica to pay my bills while I was gone, and I stood toe-to-toe with the cursed duffel bag, and filled it. It felt good, finally crossing it off my list.

I shower and run my fingers across my newly shaved head. I put on cologne, button my shirt, and pep talk myself in the mirror for a full five minutes. I’d spent an inordinate proportion of the day constructing various scenarios of action in my head. 

_Hey Veronica._

_Hey Logan._

_Wanna go steady?_

_Sure thing, you magnificent bastard._

Clearly, the scenarios were a stretch at best and reflected my general lack of creative inspiration.

After intensive internal consultation the final game plan was as follows: Dinner, Drinking, _Kiss her_. 

Seemed simple enough.

I kept getting distracted by the final phase of the plan.

I figured a kiss was the best way to discern her interest levels. I know Keith said I should talk, but honestly, I didn’t know what to say...how do you lead with _I love you?_

I walk to the bar in the balmy July dusk. Suffice to say there was a spring in my step, a determination that left me both terrified and excited. I was going to seize the day, get the girl, carpe diem and all that other bullshit.

The friendzone could get fucked.

I press open the door to the bar and scan the crowd for my favorite face. There it is, perched on a barstool, with her hair in those amazing waves, a pale shirt and her skinny jeans with heels. 

Stunning.

But then my gaze turns to a man sitting beside her, he’s laughing, _she_ is laughing. 

He is making Veronica Mars laugh, and not in that ironic hate-you-die laugh, it’s her flirting I-might-just-sleep-with-you laugh. I stand, frozen, watching it play out like a shitty B-grade horror movie. He reaches over and touches her leg, hand lingering on her thigh to emphasize his apparently hilarious joke. 

She doesn’t even tase him. 

_Fuck._

It feels like all the air is punched out of my chest. I was about to lose everything, before I even had it.

I consider turning away, storming out and leaving her with Fuckface _._ But then I remember, _nine hours_. 

My throat constricts and I move towards them at the bar.

As I walk Fuckface is handing her a napkin with a number and she’s _taking_ it. 

_Logan, remember, stabbing people is wrong._

I’m unwittingly being sucked back into the friendzone. Just when I thought it was time to break out.

I was clearly mistaken.

Veronica sees me and her eyes dart around, panicked. Fuckface smiles smugly and extends his hand out, “Nice to meet you, I’m Chris.”

_The audacity!_

It takes every muscle in my body to will my hand to his. “Logan,” somehow exits my mouth and not the fire that I want to spit on him. His handshake is sweaty and after the release I wipe my hand on my jeans, making a mental note to burn them later.

I notice up close that Fuckface looks a bit like Piz. _Interesting_. A face perfect for punching. I ball my fists at my side unconsciously.

Apparently my compulsion for bloody knuckles over Veronica Mars doesn’t fade over time. Unsurprising.

“Can I get you a beer, Logan?” Oh God, he even _sounds_ like Piz. 

I blatantly ignore him, deciding not to engage with Fuckface any longer, ignore the problem and it will go away. Fingers crossed.

I gesture to the bartender and order two whiskeys. One for me and one for Veronica. Or maybe two for me if she ditches me for Fuckface. 

Stoic, I focus on the wood grain of the bar, forcing the air of indifference on the outside. On the inside, however, I hear the distinct sound of static cracking in my ears and feel myself ready to go full Hulk, veins popping in my arms and neck. Sometimes it takes you seeing it, in the flesh, to make you realize the true scope of your feelings and I did _not_ like what I saw.

Plans thwarted. I was clearly in the friendzone for a reason, that's all I was to her, a friend. We could play texties like teenagers late into the night, nook _multiple times_ and then she flirts with Fuckface at the bar like it’s all nothing.

“No worries guys. Enjoy. I hope to hear from you, Veronica,” he finally finishes talking and then dares to _fucking wink_ goodbye. When Veronica looks away Not-Piz locks his gaze with mine, green and intense, like he wants to stab me a little bit too. 

_Ripping eyeballs from heads is also wrong, Logan._

He leaves. Veronica exhales a relieved breath and she levels her eyes at me, eyebrows furrowed, glaring.

“Who’s your friend?” I ask through gritted teeth and take a long swig of whiskey.

“No one, I just met him.” 

“But you took his number,” I point to her back pocket, horrified that his number was planted against her delicious backside. Backside distractions aside, thoughts nibble at my insides. She is not _yours_ Logan, you have no claim here.

“I was just being nice,” she offers, almost apologetically and I instantly feel gutted, embarrassed at my behavior.

“Hmmm, Veronica Mars being nice to strangers?… well, I guess miracles do happen,” but I was still angry and I let my venom spit out.

“Shut up,” Veronica nudges against me. She knows it, she knows that even the slightest touch from her can calm me, ebb my white-hot rage.

Damn, it was working too.

“Are you going to call him when I’m gone?” I ask and it physically hurts to say, because I don't really want to hear the answer.

She shakes her head, “No.” She rips up the napkin and hands it to the bartender. I feel a little better.

A little.

But, all the same, my plans, my excitement, were all gone, dead in the water.

“You won’t be needing it anyway,” I shoot over my shoulder as I walk to the booth.

Of course, this display proved that while our friendship seemed strong, things were decidedly fragile.

* * *

The conversation in the booth was stressed and staggered and focused solely on the selection of menu items before us. I couldn’t get past Fuckface any more than I could get past Veronica’s reaction to him, or my own.

I order a burger and Veronica orders ribs from a nervous waitress who most certainly can read the room. She scurries away as quickly as possible.

Marla would have a fucking field-day about my possessive aggression. I made a mental note to keep this little slip from her and take another gulp of whiskey.

But she was right. Protective Logan needed to pull his head in. 

_You can't control everything Logan._

Veronica reaches into her bag and retrieves a pen, pulls a napkin from the dispenser, covers her hand while scribbling something. She finishes, folding the napkin into four and slides it across the table to me.

Despite my outburst, Veronica’s eyes are calm, patient and forgiving.

I stare at the paper for a moment, before opening it to a picture of a smiley-faced stick figure holding up a middle finger.

I laugh, the breath that expels when I do instantly calms me. Like it forced all the negative air from my body.

“I’m sorry, _I_ was being a fuckface,” I apologize, looking into her blue eyes, awaiting my penance.

She nods pertinently, “Yes you were.”

I feel mild relief and I force out a smile. I’m still angry though, not at her, at the situation, at myself, at the disappointment. Of course, it is all of my own making and I internally berate myself for getting to this point in the first place.

“I like that I can make you happy again,” her voice is light and dare I say it, flirty.

Yes, you can, and you can also destroy me in one conversation with a stranger. 

But I say, “I’m always happy when we’re together,” and I do mean it, mostly.

Her blue eyes flicker and her expression is a soothing calm, an unspoken forgiveness. Of course she knows I’m an idiot, that's nothing new, I just hope she thinks of me as _her_ idiot.

I couldn’t blame her for being drawn into the concept of something new, no baggage, no history, no angst, no psychotic silent rages in bars at total strangers. Something simple.

“So… am I not allowed to take men's numbers?” 

Here it comes.

As much as she’s forgiven me, she’s also not one to take it lying down. Now, it appears, it’s time for my penance. Friends don't let friends act like bonehead neanderthals without ensuring they get maximum traction to chastise them for it.

I would expect nothing less.

“Of course you are.” 

“Really? Didn’t seem that way.”

“I was just trying to protect you.”

“Oh, really?”

“That passive-aggressive behavior back there… wait, no, that _aggressive_ behavior, that was protective was it?” she points her finger towards me, holding her glass.

“You didn’t pick up on that?”

“I did not.”

“Friends don't let friends date idiots, I was doing you a service. You should be thanking me,” l need to keep this light, going too deep might just show the cards I just retracted back to my chest.

“Is that so?” her head cocks to the side and she takes a sip of the whiskey she’s been swirling. I catch the briefest glance at her pink tongue.

“It is.” 

“How do you know he was an idiot?”

“I’ve had a lifetime of experience with them, I can spot them a mile off.”

“Interesting… I was unaware of your so-called idiot radar. Is this the time I get to list all the idiots _you’ve_ dated, radar boy?” her eyebrows raise in the ultimate Veronica challenge. To be honest, it was a little bit scary, but mostly adorable.

“It is not.”

After Veronica had returned to Neptune and the whole _friends_ thing was still new, there were some girls. Mandy, Courtney and Taylor moved in the orbit of my apartment, and Kate, a fellow pilot who occasionally warmed my bed while I was deployed. But, none of them stuck, mainly because I didn’t want them to.

“Now Ms. Mars, if _you_ start listing idiots … then, _I_ start listing idiots, and you know that I will win.” I cough out the word _Piz_ and she laughs, a full head back laugh.

“Like an idiot competition?” 

“Yeah.”

“Well, then you will most definitely be crowned the supreme leader,” Veronica bows in subjugation to her new idiot-king.

“Do I get a crown?”

“No, this isn’t Chuck E. Cheese,” she says exasperated and giggles. In that giggle, I think I hear the humble beginnings of her I-might-just-sleep-with-you laugh leveled directly at me.

“You’re a shit, you know that right?”

“I think I have heard that somewhere before.”

I pause, the banter overtook the seriousness of the conversation again. Our waitress comes and deposits our meals on the table. Silence befalls us and I stare at my plate, then back to her. 

“I’m sorry, won’t happen again,” and I mean it.

Veronica smiles, raises her shoulder saying “bygones,” before delving excitedly into the ribs.

The bone she picks up slips from her fingers and dances all the way down her beige shirt. Dark BBQ sauce leaves a trail of stains in its wake. She takes a deep sigh, collects the rib, lifts up the shirt, and licks it to remove the stain. 

“Wow, you are one classy lady,” I watch in horrified and strangely turned on awe. 

“This, right here, is why I can’t be taken out in public.”

“Yes, you appear to be barely housetrained.”

“I knew it,” she scolds, finally taking the bite she first missed.

“You knew what?”

“That we shouldn’t go out. You, almost gouging out Chris’s eyes back there, me unable to make food contact with my mouth. We should be staying home, in the shadows, where we belong.”

I pick up a fry and pop it into my mouth, “Fine, after dinner, back to the Batcave?”

“Yes Robin,” 

“Ummm…?”

“If you think you’re Batman you’re wrong,” she adds earnestly and I chuckle, knowing she’s right. 

* * *

As soon as dinner is finished, I am ready to leave the bar. Suddenly overcome by the desire to be alone with her.

I start shuffling out of the booth and she follows, I want to hold her hand, I want to feel her palm pressed against mine. It comes at me with force and I don't know how to explain it.

Why was it that I could launch an F-A/18 Superhornet from 0 to 165 miles per hour off a 300-foot floating runway into enemy territory, but I couldn’t decide whether to hold Veronica Mars’ hand? The logistics baffled me.

I’m _going_ to do it.

My whole arm tingles in anticipation as I reach over to her and pull her from the booth. Then, ever so casually, link her fingers with mine. Veronica responds by giving my hand a tiny squeeze and the shadow of a smile.

We walk in silence back to Veronica's apartment.

Our fingers finally loosen as we reach the narrow stairs to Veronica’s front door, she releases her grip to search her handbag for keys. My hand, reeling from the lost contact, gets shoved into my pocket, hiding itself away.

I notice that her apartment is uncharacteristically neat and organized. I drop onto the couch and take off my loafers, getting the movie ready. Veronica makes us some drinks before she sits beside me, handing me one. Back in our comfortable routine, back in our cave. 

I find myself looking at the BBQ sauce stain on her right breast, then tearing my eyes away.

She snuggles deeper into the cushions and rearranges herself laying down, placing her head onto my lap. She pops the button on her jeans. It’s all familiar and confusing and disturbingly erotic, melded into one.

As the movie plays she drifts to sleep quickly, head still resting in my lap. I turn off the television and sit for a while, content to just be here, with her. The fan of lashes over her cheek, a cascade of blonde hair resting on my jeans. So much spark, brilliance and life encapsulated in this tiny form. 

Perfection.

I should have let her take the number. She is a grown woman free to make her own choices. I don’t own her, she is more than adept at making her own decisions in life. Certainly far better than I am.

Her decision to take the number should have been a sign enough. What I thought might of been there, between us, was not. And that was okay. 

I trace my fingers through her hair, playing with the silky strands. Something comes with loving someone so much you cease to recognize yourself and your behavior. She purses her lips a little and moves her head to rearrange in a more comfortable position.

Pulling myself out from under her I lift and carry her into the bedroom, still sleeping, silently tucking her under the covers. I remove my shirt and jeans and slip in beside her. Because while I’m resigned to let this all go, I selfishly need just one more night with her.

I lean over and kiss the corner of her mouth, fleeting and light, purposefully so. Just in case she rouses from her slumber and punches me square in the jaw. The room is pitch black so I can’t see her at all, but I could have sworn that her eyelashes fluttered, I felt the tiniest breath of air shift. 

I tell myself that it was a goodbye kiss, saying goodbye to the prospect of _us_ and just being happy with the friendship. What I felt for her was love, plain and simple, and with that, comes wanting the absolute best for her, and it's clearly not me.

My back to the sheets, Veronica turns, curling her body around mine. Her hand resting against my bare chest. 

_You are not enough._

It echoes around in my head and bangs against my skull like a rubber ball. 

_You will never be enough._

As I lay there, Veronica nuzzled into my chest, I try to push all those friendzone walls right back up again, where they belong. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that the pining at this point is borderline unbearable. For that, I apologize (sort of, but it's also kind of fun). But, if you've read Spinster Table you'll know that there are better days ahead very very soon, promise!


	6. Wednesday

If you want to do a side-by-side reading here is the link to [Wednesday in Spinster Table](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/58272133#workskin)

* * *

**Wednesday**

Shirtless, I cook breakfast while Veronica sleeps. 

Her fridge contained a cacophony of condiments and very few edible items. Thankfully there were eggs. 

Scrambled it is.

She finally appears, roused by the smell and still in the same clothes I tucked her in with last night. 

I tucked her tight.

Tight in my arms, in my nook, my spoons. I held on for dear life because it was the last night. It couldn’t happen again. It was all too hard. The time had come for me to move on, I’d be at work tomorrow and I crossed my fingers that it would be the ultimate distraction. 

Would it be more distracting than the way Veronica stretches, eyes half-open, raising her arms above her head, and a sliver of her flat stomach peeking out from under her shirt?

I strongly doubted it.

“Morning sleepyhead.” I look away and keep stirring the eggs. Focus on the eggs. 

_Focus, Logan._ Let’s not burn the apartment down.

“Morning.”

“Did you sleep better last night?” I ask.

She nods, staring at my bare chest with a look I suspect is quite similar to the one that just crossed my face. _Did she just lick her lips?_ Her eyes dart around the kitchen and she finally focuses on the contents of the pan before me, “You?” 

“Most definitely.” Yes, the sleep was good, how could it not be, with you?

“I realized you’re going to be a little late for work so I thought I’d make a good breakfast before you leave.”

“I called in sick. No work today.” Her voice is light and she gives me two thumbs up. 

“Seriously?” 

Don’t fuck with me, Veronica.

“Seriously. If anyone asks I’m spending the day with my head over the toilet.” As much as I was willing to make a clean break this morning I was more than happy to enjoy more time with my _friend._ I disguised my elatement with this news by spinning around on the spot. 

I’m nothing if not subtle.

“So, I’m crashing your last day. What are we doing?”

“I was planning on going for a last surf, but I can be easily swayed. What do you want to do?” I spoon the scrambled eggs onto the plate and hand her one. She gets forks from the drawer and we sit at the table and start to eat. 

Perfectly cooked, if I do say so myself. 

“Can I come with you?” 

Did Veronica Mars just ask me to enter water, willingly? 

“You? Come to surf?”

“Yes. Well, I won’t surf, but I could swim.”

“Do you even own a bathing suit?” I ask, heaping a mouthful in. 

“Yes, I do Mr. Echolls.” 

“Well then, by all means, let's go to the beach.”

* * *

I glance at the clock, then glance away. Today is not a day for clockwatching; we were still in the single digits. It's a day for enjoying myself, enjoying the last day with my friend. 

I remember I had to ditch Keith for our daily swim. I felt bad that I wouldn’t get to say goodbye in person. But, Veronica just agreed to go to the beach with me, _in a bikini,_ so we _were_ going. 

I text him while I wait for her to dress.

 **10.24am From Logan:** Sorry Keith, can't make it today. Raincheck for approx 6 months?

 **10.25am From Keith:** THATS QUITE THE RAINCHECK. NO PROBLEMS. ASSUMING ALL IS WELL?

What is it that everyone over 60 only knows how to text in all caps? Stop shouting at me, Keith!

 **10.25am From Logan:** Veronica has taken the day off. We’re going to hang before I leave.

 **10.27am From:** ARE YOU SURE THAT'S MY DAUGHTER TAKING THE DAY OFF? WOW. ONLY FOR YOU, LOGAN. STAY SAFE. 

How do I reply to that message?

 **10.27am From Logan:** Will do. Bye.

 **10.28am From Keith:** ENJOY ;);)

Annnd Keith Mars just winkey faced me… 

Veronica pads out from the bedroom in a black string bikini, adjusting the fabric across her left breast.

“See, I _do_ have a bikini!” She does a spin.

I say nothing, only blink. 

I distinctly remember this bikini, for I have undone it’s strings before. She swam with me one night, in this, when the pool had closed late one evening at the Neptune Grand. She let me graze her nipples with my teeth and slide my fingers inside her, pressed against the tiles in the dappled blue light.

I _never_ forget a bikini.

She raises her eyebrows at me. I realize I’m staring, mouth slightly agape and she laughs out loud that, for once, she has silenced me.

She pulls at the top again, uncomfortably. “It's about a size too small and I’m pretty sure the last time I wore it phones only had number buttons.”

It was fall 2006, to be precise. 

“You could always take it off?” My mouth suddenly finds words, completely inappropriate ones for a friendship I’ve resolved to keep that way.

Shut up, Logan.

I feel like I’m going to be saying that a lot today.

* * *

Veronica lays her head on my surfboard and we float in the waves, the sun beating down on us hot and clear. I can feel the movement of her legs beneath the surface, kicking back and forth, shifting the water. Her blonde hair, darkened by the wet, sticks to her temple. An errant black string from her bikini falls over her shoulder and drips onto the board.

It was as if we were in a bubble. The ocean, the sand, surfers, walkers surrounded us, but they were all a peripheral blur. Inconsequential. We rest on the surfboard, focused, completely alone, inches apart. The water bobbing and slapping against the underside of the board. The perfect lazy last day.

“Do you ever wonder how things would be different?” she ponders, thoughtfully.

“Like?”

“What if Carrie never died? It set off a chain reaction of things that might not have happened otherwise. I wouldn’t have come here. We might never have spoken again. You and Carrie might still be together.”

I can’t imagine a world where we didn’t speak again. Don’t want to.

“And you would still be with Piz,” I say, eyebrow raised.

Fucking Piz.

She shakes her head, dismissing the idea. Then silently raises her hand and begins absentmindedly tracing her finger in circles on the back of my hand.

I swallow, hard, watching it.

“I wouldn’t be with Carrie,” I reply, honestly. Carrie and I were done long before Veronica came back onto the scene. 

Her finger starts to continue its path up and down my arm. From my hand all the way to my shoulder, slowly, she turns and takes it back down again. 

I have no idea what in the world _this_ is.

But I like it. 

We both continue talking like it’s nothing at all.

But it's _not_ nothing. 

“What if we weren’t friends at all? Seems weird now to even imagine it.”

Both our eyes stare at her finger, following its path. 

“We don’t need to imagine it, Mars. It happened. You were forced to be my friend again,” I meet her eyes and smirk, “against your better judgment.”

She nods, agreeing.

“But we were never really just friends before, were we? This is the first time we’ve actually been proper friends.”

Her hand retracts and it plunges into the water. I instantly miss the touch.

Okay, so you touched me, now I get to reciprocate right? In a distinctly platonic way. I convince myself that this is just being silly, with my friend. 

I put out my index finger and run it down her face, slowly, just like she did. The pressure is light, like a feather traversing the skin. Her eyes, bemused and a little dreamy flutter closed as I skate the bridge of her nose, to her upper lip. Then, her lips, pink and full. This takes a little longer to get past, as my finger seems to apply the brakes. To her chin. When it reaches there, her lips part and she expels a breath, soft and deep, and I feel her legs flutter again underwater.

I also exhale, slightly ragged.

“Let's be honest Logan. I tolerate you,” she tries to make light of this increasingly heavy moment.

This entire exercise is a terrible plan. 

I should paddle away and float to shore. This is not something you do when you’ve resolved to keep things platonic. 

But my finger raises again and, starting at her chin, makes its way back up, like it's the logical path. But, really, that fingertip just craves the touch, the _skin_ beneath it. I keep my face as emotionless as possible, evoking casual, but watching her expressions intently. 

There is something in her eyes, something dark.

I reach her lips again and her tongue slips out, licking my fingertip, almost sucking it, with a kiss. The entire time, her eyes lock with mine, I’m hypnotized. The space between us, suddenly tremulous.

_Holy shit._

Despite the cool of the water, all the blood rushes to my groin and I’m hard in seconds. I didn’t realize a fingertip and a tongue together could be so erotic.

My eyes search hers, seeking answers, explanations, but I only see lust, mirrored in her blue depths. 

Is this a test?

If I can hold myself back, deny my feelings, do I get a prize?

_Only one prize I want._

I snap my finger down and let my body and face follow into the water with a crash. Under the surface, I hold my breath for as long as I can, because I don't want to surface again and address what just transpired. 

When I finally come up for air, she’s still perched on the surfboard, looking shell shocked. “I’m hungry, should we head in and get some lunch?” I say.

“Sure, let's go.”

* * *

The ride home from the beach is silent and uncomfortable. 

While I drive I make a pointed effort not to look at her, but I’m acutely aware of her presence beside me. She has a towel wrapped around her waist and a wet t-shirt on top of her bikini. The cold of the air-conditioning blowing on her face, she stares out the tinted windows. I grip the steering wheel and dare to glance down at the index finger that was just in her mouth.

It twitches.

I feel a rising panic, trying to process what has happened, the signs that point to reciprocated feelings. All of it, of course, culminating the day after I’ve vowed to leave well enough alone.

I park the car, we walk the stairs, entering her apartment in silence.

“Feel free to take a shower,” she offers, the first words spoken since we left the beach.

“Thanks.”

I open her fridge and take out two soda cans, passing her one. I look towards the front door, I really should leave, this all feels _too much_ , too highly charged. I don’t trust myself. But tomorrow I have to leave, and I don't want this stilted awkwardness to be our goodbye. 

I can hear a tap dripping in her bathroom, the gentle hum of the refrigerator, the fan circulating the warm air around the room. Why is it so fucking hot in here? I put the cold can against my neck.

“Is everything okay?” she breaks the silence.

_Nothing is okay._

“No, it’s not Veronica,” I reply, defeated. Everything feels so final and loaded that I can’t concentrate, I can’t think straight.

“I’m sorry,” she holds her arm nervously, placing the can on the table. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for!” 

“Is it because you’re leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Is it because of _this_ ?” she motions between us, her eyes searching mine. It throws me a little, while this _thing_ between us is hard to dismiss, it’s the first time it’s been verbally acknowledged by her. 

Anticipatory hairs stick up on the back of my neck.

“Yes.”

She runs her fingers through her damp hair, “I’m scared too.” 

“I’m not scared Veronica, I’m fucking terrified.” As the words leave my mouth my voice cracks. 

Her eyes fall to the floor, her lashes fluttering, she bites her lip.

I realize that this is the moment, whether I wanted it to be or not. The crack of opportunity had come, it was time to speak my truth. 

My voice falters, “All this week, hell, all this year I’ve been fighting this constant battle. I desperately want you, Veronica, I want you so bad it fucking hurts, but I don’t think I’m right for you.”

Her hand goes over her heart and she takes shallow breaths. Her eyes seem to cloud, the start of tears forming. 

My chest constricts as I continue, “You deserve the best V,” I pause, wrenching the next words from deep inside, they are the most difficult to say, “and it’s not me.”

“Logan!” she cries. 

I squeeze my eyes closed and hold up my hand, continuing, “I’m sorry I let things go too far this week, it was the wedding, and the close contact and I started to lose my head and my focus.” I claw at my scalp nervously, “We tried before, and I ruined it again and again. You are my best friend, I need you in my life. I can’t live without you. You know that, right?”

“Logan, before it was different. That was over ten years ago. We were young and stupid and going through shit most people don’t experience in their entire lifetime.”

I shake my head, resigned to my fate.

“Don’t you feel it?” she asks, voice low, pleading with me from under her lashes.

“Of _course_ I feel it.”

 _Everything_ about us, is epic somehow.

“That, we’re … we’re...“ she can’t find the word, but I know it instantly. The word haunts me.

“Unfinished,” I whisper.

I feel exposed, vulnerable, but at the same time, relieved. It was _out there._ My love for her was out there, and she could decide what it was she wanted to do with it. 

“V. You are the smartest, funniest, most beautiful… you’re the best person I know. I’m just a damaged movie-stars son—numerous false murder charges under my belt. I can’t escape the chaos; it follows me everywhere I go. You’ve made something amazing of yourself, worked so hard through college, and you’re in this great place in your career. I do one fucked up thing, and it can bring your whole world down.”

Breathe Logan. 

In, out.

In, out.

In, out.

_Don’t love me, Veronica, you’re smarter than that._

“Logan,” Tiny feet stalk towards me, barefooted, silent and stealthy on the orange tiles.

I’m trapped.

Gloriously trapped in a hot kitchen between a counter and a woman almost a foot shorter than me.

Our bodies have not yet connected, but like always, I feel the electricity surging out of me, out of her, joining between us in zaps. She reaches out and my skin tingles before it makes contact. Ten years after the fact, it still remembers her and I feel it in anticipation.

The muscle memory of her.

Of Veronica, _my_ Veronica.

The lids of my eyes close at her approach. 

“I cannot stand any other person on the planet except you. You are my best friend, my worst enemy, you challenge me and drive me fucking crazy Logan. And I am going to kiss you. I am not going to let you leave tomorrow without me kissing you.”

“Veronica,” I warn.

My body and heart scream YES, a thousand times, YES! They shout it from the rooftops. But my head says no. Don’t love me, Veronica, I will inevitably disappoint you, then lose you.

And I cannot lose you.

I won't.

“Shut up!” She snaps, as if reading my thoughts. Taking the final step towards me, closing the gap. Palms spread on my chest, crystalline eyes gaze up to mine. I shiver when I feel the heat coming off her skin. Her hands are the only thing holding me vertical, I feel like I’m falling into the floor, through my own feet.

I make the decision to obey her order, to shut up. Mainly because speech has escaped me.

_And she’s so fucking close._

“I’m going to kiss you now, and if you don’t want me to, you’re going to have to stop me,” she whispers.

This time, I stop breathing entirely.

Veronica stands on her tiptoes, eyes like fire, and kisses me, softly, her lips taste of lemonade. The kiss is so brief it physically hurts. She pulls back, gauging my reaction.

Is that it?

_Hell no!_

I take her face in my hands and bring it toward me, crashing her lips into mine. Tasting her, reliving her, like ten years of lost time, like I’ve got one night left. There is not a soul in the world I’d prefer to spend it with and I intend to show her.

Her lips part hungrily, her tongue meeting my own. Our heads angle to meet each other closer, breathy and hot. Her hand wraps around my neck, tugging me towards her. Bodies pressed against each other, flush and craving.

Panting, we pull away, heads resting together, assessing, I’m searching for the composure I lost long ago.

My lips already miss hers.

“Kiss me again,” comes from my mouth in a growl.

She obeys, willingly, our lips reconciling hungrily. 

I delight in the exquisite pleasure of finally having her, after all this time, I want to savor it. Like an ice-cream, melting in the summer sun. It would be gone before I knew it, I didn’t want to miss one drip. 

I slide my hands under her backside and lift her from the floor, her legs wrap around me squeezing me tight, lips refusing to break from mine. Her core radiates heat into my crotch. I’m already hard, but somehow, this makes me harder. I pull back a little, worried that my obvious reaction to her might scare her off, but she seems drawn into it, she presses herself against me enthusiastically. 

It’s fucking divine.

My body responds by bucking against her, nothing between my cock and her heat but a black bikini bottom and blue boardshorts.

That is two layers too many, it needs to come off, _everything_ needs to come off. 

I need skin, on skin. 

Now!

I stagger, Veronica still attached to me, towards the bedroom. All the while her lips pressed against mine, tongues tasting. Lust rages between us uncontrolled. 

Years of pent up sexual tension and frustration are begging to exit my body. My legs hit the bed and I place her onto the covers, laying my weight onto her, my lips on her neck, her throat, her lips, _everywhere_. Her hands rake up my shirt and claw at my back, legs still wrapped around me.

_Those legs._

I run my hands down them, spreading my palms across her milky thighs. So fucking soft. My fingers dig into the skin, leaving white marks in their wake. 

Those thighs will be the death of me.

Veronica groans into my neck, before pulling back and nibbling on the skin under my ear.

“We need to slow down,” I pull back, panting, “Or this isn’t going to last long.”

She snorts, gripping my shirt and pulling it roughly over my head, “Logan, NOW!” I laugh, shocked that she is just as desperate as I am. I never thought it possible.

I willingly peel her shirt off, but I don't rush. Inch by inch I pull it over her head, leaving a trail of kisses where her shirt was. Veronica clutches my hair in her hands, writhing impatiently. Her damp black bikini still underneath and I get to undo the ties that I thought about for hours. I lick her taut nipple, swirling around it and she moans and pleads to God. 

It’s not God, it’s _me._

And I get _you._

Her bikini bottoms follow the trail of clothing to the floor and I stand, pulling off my board shorts and kicking them to the wall. She lays on the bed, naked, legs splayed and I blink twice. 

She points to her dresser “top draw,” and I bound across the room, pulling out a condom and putting it on with lightning speed. 

I’m back, above her. Her arms reach up and pull me back down, nestling me towards her, legs open, waiting at her core. It’s so fucking hot. So fucking wet.

But, I stop, resting at her entrance, hovering, slipping back and forth just slightly in her warm folds. She purrs.

_An actual fucking purr._

My eyes meet hers, we’re both drawing ragged breaths, but remarkably calm.

“Veronica, I love you,” she _needs_ to know this. 

I am hers.

“I love you,” she smiles, eyes clear and sincere, boring back into my own.

She arches against me and I slip inside, slowly making my way in before dragging myself out, only to plunge back, slower, savoring the feeling of her tight walls around me. 

Missionary - nothing made me so hard. Something about her beneath me, pulling me into her, arching her back to encourage further depth, sucking me into her vortex. 

I succumb. I’m only a man.

The thrusts become deeper, more rapid, more desperate, I’m so close, her moans tell me she is too. The rhythm sets and I can feel myself hitting the spot, the spot she loves best. I slip my hand between us, my thumb gliding back and forth across her clit. 

Her eyes roll back into her head. 

The best kind of eye-roll Veronica Mars can give, and she gives many. 

_Say my name._

Her heat, her desperation clamps around me, over and over again.

“Logan,” she stutters her orgasm into my ear and it sets me over the edge. The colors in the room fuzz and brighten, synapses fire uncontained, a shiver races down my spine. I’m done. I come hard, spilling inside her, collapsing onto the beautiful woman beneath me.

I pull my torso back and prop myself above her, resting on my arm. Our bodies still stuck together with sweat, I stay inside. I’m not ready to leave yet.

“Fuck,” is the only thing I can think of to say.

Veronica chuckles and says, “Yep,” laying back on the bed and resting her hand beneath her naked breast. 

“That was unexpected,” I muse. Because despite the fact that I wanted it with every molecule of my being, I was convinced I had the willpower to fight it.

I was wrong. 

Again.

Veronica kissing me, Veronica naked beneath me, robbed me mercilessly of any willpower. 

“Did we just have sex?” she giggles in a spurt and covers her eyes.

“If you have to ask...”

“I’m just convincing myself that this is reality, checking I’m not actually dreaming it,” she turns her head a little, shyly. 

“Oh, it’s reality baby,” I wink mischievously.

She looks so god-damn delicious that I could do it all over again.

_Can I do it all over again?_

_Please… I’m already inside. It just makes logical sense._

She raises her hand and runs it down my hairline, featherlight. “We _need_ to do that again,” she whispers, “we’re on borrowed time.”

_Great minds._

My mouth drags across hers, she nibbles at my bottom lip, they’re flush and bruised from her onslaught. I pulse inside her.

I pull out, still ferociously hard, like a goddamn teenager, and remove the condom.

“Give me five minutes,” I wink.

* * *

I _did_ get to do it again, many times. 

As many times as my body would physically allow. Who needs to sleep? Bon Jovi said it best, I’d sleep when I was dead. I had to be out the door at 6.30 am tomorrow. Somehow, I had to walk myself out that door, away from _this._

I had no idea how on earth I was going to do that. 

But, that was a problem for tomorrow.

So I lost myself in Veronica for one night, a Veronica who said she loved me, who said she wanted me, despite all my flaws. I pushed thoughts of anything beyond tonight out of my mind. _Nothing_ would ruin this. 

The friendzone walls had been obliterated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’ve all waited very patiently through an epic amount of pining. You all deserve the sex above and the kudos for bearing with me! Let me know what you think :)


	7. Thursday

**Authors Note:**

In this AU, there were liberties taken about naval activities and the reach of WIFI/cell reception in the pacific. Go with it and enjoy!

If you want to do a side-by-side reading here is the link to [Thursday in Spinster Table](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/58532488)

* * *

**238 minutes left**

There are days in your life that stand out. Monumental days, heavenly days, days you live over and over again in your mind. In the future, you wonder if they were truly as blissful as you imagined, or were you just framing them so? 

Yesterday was one of those days, so good that I don’t want to sleep. Like fighting the human urge to close my eyes and succumb to slumber will let it continue eternally. As incredible as it was, it didn't subvert the passage of time. Seconds still passed, rolling to minutes, morphing into hours. Time stops for no man, even one who has just had the pleasure of making love for the better part of eleven hours straight with Veronica Mars.

We did take food and hydration mini-breaks.

A few.

It’s 2.32 am and I lay beside a sleeping Veronica Mars, we're both naked and spent. The light from the bathroom is on, illuminating her face in the darkness. Her mouth is parted slightly, one arm resting on the pillow, the other, resting on my chest. The fan whirs and hums above us, doing a terrible job of dissipating the heat. I’m not sure if it’s coming from the outside, or from us. 

Facing her I make a mental inventory of everything; hair, face, soft lines, warm curves so this vision can sustain me for the upcoming solitude.

I was baffled by yesterday's events, after processing the physical aspect of them, I was reeling over the emotional torrent that had ripped through me. It appeared that all the longing had not been one-sided. She loved _me_ , she felt it. The nuggets of memory start processing in a totally new light; the touches, the lingering looks, sexually-charged banter, they weren’t in my mind, they _happened._

 _Yesterday,_ in all its glory. A day filled with confessions, searing kisses and so much lovemaking we couldn’t walk. But, what it lacked was talk, _real_ talk. Were we really going to do this? I didn’t want to bring it up, because I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to break the spell, the fresh, sex, giddy, madness of touching her after a ten-year hiatus. So I shut my mouth, and I just lived in the feeling, even if it was just for one day, of Veronica saying she loved me, and her kissing _me_ first. My mind was wondrously blown. 

There are 238 minutes until my departure. While I wanted to dive head-first into this life, it was madness. Suit up, stand on the diving platform, propel yourself off the board into an empty pool below. Starting a relationship with a six-month absence was ludacris. I wanted every option considered, because I wasn’t going into this half-way and taking the easy route. It would be long and hard, but most of all, it needed to be right.

Navy life had conditioned me to a process of analysis and risk mitigation. Everything was delivered in daily analytics, flight data, training data, safety procedures, weapons data, mission data. Much of it was on the humble spreadsheet. I’d developed a real affinity for them over the years, relying on them regularly for clarity and consult. So naturally, I construct a spreadsheet in my head. Tabs, columns, rows, trying to make some semblance of order to this.

Option B was a gamble, a dangerous one. But I was willing to place the bets high, for the long term gains. And let's be honest, if anyone was a gamble here, it was me.

Veronica cracks an eye open and looks at me like she’s reading my mind. She used to say that my thoughts were very loud.

Busted.

“What are you doing? Go to sleep!” she groans, shuffling in the sheets.

“Not yet,” I grin and touch her face.

She glances at the clock, “It's 2.50 am! If not now, then when?”

I shrug, I was pretty good operating on zero sleep. I run my fingers through her hair because I still can’t stop touching her. The fingers want the imprint of her skin beneath my own to last forever. 

“If you’re going to lie there, watching me sleep like a creepy stalker, the least you can do is let me in.” She opens up my arm and burrows into me, arms wrapped and sighs like it’s the epitome of comfort. We're quiet and just when I think she's drifted back to sleep she whispers into the darkness.

"Logan."

"Mmm."

"I'm sorry it took me so long to kiss you."

"I'm sorry for the exact same thing."

"I should have kissed you, at the wedding, at the spinster table, in the hotel room. I had a million opportunities and I didn't," she says.

"For future reference, you can kiss me anytime you want."

She tilts her head up and kisses me, this time a brief peck, "Goodnight."

I run my lips across her hair and close my eyes. 

She burrows into the nook, deep and warm and I let the mental spreadsheets settle, closing the tabs one by one, enjoying this time, while I had it. 

'Goodnight my love."

* * *

**90 minutes left**

My alarm rouses us, Veronica protests my departure as I peel myself from the sheets and head for the shower. With nude glee, I discover that she has followed me. 

“Can’t stay away from me, can you?” I quip, holding open the shower curtain, eyebrows raised.

I get the water temperature just right and step inside. It’s a shower over bath set up and Veronica takes a step in behind me. 

“Showering alone is highly overrated.”

I don't dispute the fact whatsoever. Although her presence made me doubt I was going to be doing much washing at all this morning.

She stands back, watching me wet my hair and the water fall over my body. Her eyes are devious, hungry, but she keeps a courteous distance. 

_Of course, I wish she wouldn’t._

I level my eyes at her, take a small bow, step to the side and allow her to take the stream. Veronica stands under it, the water cascading over her face, shoulders, breasts, navel, _all the way down_ my gaze follows it. She is the picture of nonchalance, but of course, she knows precisely what she’s doing to me, it's kind of hard for a guy to hide it. 

I pass her the shampoo, she pours it into her palm and I rest back against the tiles and just _watch._ She massages her hair, mountains of bubbles form, dripping down. Her eyes closed tight. 

I can’t help it, I take a step towards her and run my fingers across her stomach. She grins, eyes still closed. My hands make their way to her hair, running through it, helping her massage. Veronica pulls her hands down and lets me finish my hair salon treatment. Eyes still closed, I tilt her head back, rinsing it. I decide I _have_ to kiss her. 

So I do. 

She tastes of vanilla shampoo, but I don't hate it. I run my hand down, sliding it between her legs, she parts them, granting me access. If you think I got enough of this last night, you’d be very wrong. 

She giggles, her knees trembling and she groans, “For years I forgot about your powers." In the wet, my finger finds her clit and I draw circles around it, teasing it, but not touching it.

Out, around, left, right. A drip of water travels from my hand to her thigh.

“What powers?” I whisper into her ear, my curiosity piqued. A finger still tracking its devious path, a figure eight, a love heart, everything but letting it fall where she wants it most.

“You’re a sexual psychic.”

I laugh.

“Thank you, I think?” I edge it closer, but not close enough. She can put a pretty label on it and think that it's something cosmic, but the reality is much more simple. I just want to touch her _everywhere, all the time,_ and she seems to enjoy that too. 

Veronica bites my shoulder, hard. I hope it's hard enough that I'll see her teeth marks tattooed in my flesh every day in the shower for the next week.

“It's a compliment. Take it.”

“Will do,” My finger wanders, dipping it an inch inside her, then retracting it, then dipping again. She expels a deep breath. I lean down and suck at her neck, the spot right below her ear, I luxuriate in the knowledge that it’s in the top five of Veronica Mars' erogenous zones. Of course, it works like a charm, her knees buckle and I wrap my free hand around her ass to hold her upright.

And my finger is still only in to the first knuckle.

“So, if I was a sexual psychic, I would know what you want me to do right now?” I growl into her ear, her cheeks rise into a smile. Her eyes find mine, blue and begging. 

I lean forward, kissing her, and let my finger find the spot she desires the most, she swears under her breath and her hand hits the glass for support.

“Sorcery,” she moans, reaching down and takes my throbbing cock in her hand.

* * *

**45 minutes left**

We’d spent considerably longer in the shower than I anticipated. I had to speed things up, I was about to leave and we hadn’t spoken at all, and I wasn’t counting moans, dirty-talk and crying out to the gods. 

I’d exited the bathroom to find her lying on my bed and the picture of it was so perfect I couldn’t look away. By some erotic miracle, she trusts me enough to let me photograph her, wet and naked from the waist up, wrapped in my sheets. Giving me the gift of a kinky-keepsake for the long days at sea. It's a great momentary distraction for the conversation I know soon _has_ to happen. She leaves the room to let me dress.

I button my shirt, hair still damp, my fingers continually slipping, like they're battling against me and the general logistics of buttoning entirely. Dressed in my camouflage working uniform I appear in the kitchen, where Veronica is semi-dressed (the best kind of dressed), making coffee with bare feet on the tiles. She’s wearing my old white Calvin shirt. It hangs just below her hips, I can see the curve of her ass and her black underwear beneath. 

What is the phenomenon that women look better in men's clothes than men? Spend $100 on a shirt, yeah it looks _okay,_ but put Veronica in it…

We make stilted conversation and sip at the warm coffee, eyes continually floating back and forth, before finding each other, suddenly shy. Bewildering considering I was inside her not ten minutes earlier. My phone buzzes in my pocket, we both know my ride is now on its way. There is a bizarre sensation like time is flying by, but also stagnant. All that was comfortable and _right_ about last night. The perfect fit, the sex, the confessions are all harsh in the light of day. The urgency of my departure hits us hard, now things are awkward. 

I open my mouth to speak, to tell her all the thoughts that meandered through my head these last few hours. That we should wait. That this isn’t necessarily goodbye, just a temporary pause, a hibernation.

Old Logan, impulsive Logan would throw caution to the wind, he’d declare Veronica his and let the world know it. _New_ Logan, he was more trepidatious. He knew what kind of havoc he could create unchecked, this needed to be _right_.

She gets in first, her words fast “Logan,” her eyes meet mine, a deep supplicating blue, “I need to tell you that you’re not chaos. I’m not scared of you. You are an incredible guy who has completely turned his life around. You have this incredible career; you’re respected and smart and funny and kind. You need to stop letting what happened in the past define you. You aren’t your dad, or your mom, or what happened with Lilly, or Felix, or Carrie. Not ONE of those things was your fault. Yes, you have shitty luck sometimes, but you’re the good guy in all this.”

Her words sit with me, several seconds pass before I can move or speak. 

“Then why do I always feel like the bad guy?”

While life generally threw people curveballs, for some reason mine were more like Molotov cocktails. Smashing through everything and everyone in their path. Surely another wouldn’t be too far away. 

She advances on me, takes my hand in hers and gives it a squeeze. “You need to focus on the good things in your life. The good you’ve become from all the heartache.” She sounds like my therapist, the words that people like to tell me over the years. But unless you _feel_ them yourself, they are just words, even if they come from her.

“You know I did it all for you, right?”

I say it, because I can’t _not_ say it. 

She shakes her head, “Don’t say that Logan.”

“Okay, I won't,” I pause, quieter “but it’s true.”

She is silent for a moment. I take the last sip of my coffee and put the mug into the sink, staring into it, readying myself. This is the part that takes all the courage, that takes all the energy to come from my heart to my mouth. 

“I’m going to say something Veronica, and I need you not to interrupt me. Can you do that?”

“Depends on what you say,” she laughs nervously. 

I smile at her, beautiful woman, “Veronica, I love you, but...”

She opens her mouth, my hand goes up to quiet her, frustration seeped into my tone. “No. No speaking. We don’t have much time and I need to get this out.”

Her mouth and eyes close, awaiting my continuation. I steel myself with a deep breath, terrified that one false move right now was going to ruin our entire story.

“I love you. And I will love you no matter what, but maybe this is a good time to think about what you want. I’m going to be gone, and I don’t know how long for. You should use this time to think about us, if you want to go down this path with me. I can’t promise it will be easy. Go out there, see if there is anyone else for you.” 

That mouth opens again, so tenacious Miss Mars, my hand goes back up. 

“If I get back and you want to be friends. I can deal with that. At the end of the day, I need you in my life, V, in whatever capacity you want me. Okay?”

What I don't say is, _do it,_ go and screw the brains out of hot guys while I’m gone and get it out of your system. Because I can’t see you at the bar with a guy like Fuckface again and not commit homicide. All the therapy in the world can’t save me from my feelings towards you. We aren’t young anymore, everything we do here, I want to be for keeps. We’ve had two chances now, and we’ve blown them both, this one will be our last. 

She sighs, in agreeance or resignation, I’m not sure. 

And at that moment, my phone beeps, I check it, “the Uber is here.” _The one time they’re on time!_

Fuck. 

Walking to the bedroom, I take a final glance around, lingering on the messy sheets for a moment too long, grab my duffel and walk to the kitchen. Veronica stares at the bag in my hand like she hates bags and all that they stand for.

I completely understand, that fucking bag has haunted me for 5 days straight.

I hadn’t yet constructed a viable plan as to how I was going to physically leave. Walk out the door. Of course, I understood the general mechanics of bodily movement. Lift leg, step, heel, toe, repeat with alternative. But whoever created the movement was not walking away from someone, someone like Veronica, for _months_. The thought of it is unbearable.

I stand before her again, raising my hand for a fist bump with a wry smirk. She looks at me with surprised disbelief. 

“Are you trying to fist bump me?” she sneers.

My body shudders with laughter. The kind you force out as a cover when you really just want to cry.

“I hope that’s a fucking joke?” 

My laugh turns to a warble and I step forward and wrap myself around her, holding her tight against my chest. She grips me firmly around my torso, _very_ firmly. I lean down and inhale the shampoo freshness of her.

Without releasing me, she tilts her head upwards, I pull her face towards me and kiss her, softly. Tracing my tongue against hers, lips grazing, then pulling back, so very reluctantly. 

Because I need to remind myself that this kiss may be my last. I was asking her to move on and there was a very real chance that this kiss could be goodbye. 

Her face goes into my neck and a sound emanates from her throat, a staggered breathing, like the beginnings of a cry. 

_Please don’t cry, Veronica._

The fucking Uber beeps me again.

“I _have_ to go.” 

She pushes me towards the door, “Go.”

I take one last glance at her, eyes shimmering with unshed tears. I don't make eye contact. For obvious reasons. 

“See you soon,” I pick up the duffel and walk out the door.

Lift leg, heel, toe, open door, walk down the stairs. 

A white Camry waits out the front of my apartment. I open the door and deposit myself onto the fabric seat. I feel like paper, brittle, ready to tear apart at the smallest breath of wind.

“Hey Dude, off to deployment?” Mr. Fucking Impatient points to my uniform, making small talk.

I finger the fabric of my duffel strap, “yeah,” is the only thing I can muster.

Thankfully, he gets the hint. 

I hurriedly unlock my phone, fingers furiously composing a message to her. I hit the letters so hard they miss and I have to keep fixing the mistakes.

**Veronica. I was wrong. Wait for me. Let's do this, let's try, I want to be with you. L. x**

I stare at it for a few moments before hitting delete and tucking it back in my pocket. 

We’d endured years of this, knocking on decades of emotional ping pong. Surely it couldn’t all be for _nothing?_ Did we exist in this orbit for entertainment value only? It was like making your way through years of a TV show only to find they killed off the most interesting character. It's pointless and disappointing. I had to believe that there was a greater destination than this, that we could be _something,_ if only we were given the right chance. 

I was determined to wait, to give us this chance, even if it ripped my bloody beating heart directly from my chest. 

So I stare out the window and let the remains of Neptune pass me by with a spectacular red sunrise blooming in the background.

* * *

At North Island Air Station, we have two meetings and one briefing before suiting up. Boots, flight suit, g-suit, harness all go on in the ready room which is raucous with chatter and catch-ups after months at home. The squadron will make its way across the Pacific today, about a thousand miles west of Hawaii. 

I cross the runway, holding my helmet and chat with my plane captain, going over the necessary preflight final checks. I climb up, running my hand across the aluminum fuselage of the Hornet, the name LT LOGAN ECHOLLS printed with MOUTH below it. It’s become a superstitious habit, I always touch the name, as if convincing myself that by doing so everything will be okay. 

In the cockpit, I strap myself in looking up at the deep blue Californian sky, cumulus clouds scattered on the horizon. I crank the motors, warm up the systems, close the canopy and clip on my oxygen mask, waiting for orders to depart. This is _it,_ the reason that I commit to the long hauls; the flying. It’s addictive. To know that at any moment I might be the fastest moving object in the earth's atmosphere was an incredible rush. This feeling makes up, in part, for leaving Veronica today. 

The flying is the quiet part, after take-off, after all the de-briefs and checks it's the time to just have silence ( well, as much silence as you can have through earplugs, a five-pound helmet and 110 decibels of screaming engine and thrust ). It was a strange calm, which I needed after the tumultuous overthinking that raged within me these last few days.

It's a perfect, dreamlike flight as we travel in formation, finally spotting the Carl Vinson, like a speck of dust in the vast Pacific. She grows as we fly closer, a thousand feet of steel runway on water. 

Kissing off my wingmen, I queue for recovery. 

“405 on the 250 for 42. Angels 15. 5.5,” I report and the marshall assigns me a holding point in the queue.

I do the maths on my kneeboard card. A few half standard rate turns and wait in line. This is the dance of giant slabs of steel, choreographed into a careful ballet, one so precise the slightest incorrect movement can mean instant death.

No pressure.

I sit in holding, listening through my headset to plane after plane successfully trap before me. Then, it’s my turn, the familiar rush of adrenaline shoots from the base of my neck to my toes. 

_I fucking love this part._ Everyone does.

Flying the ball all the way in, keeping it level, in constant contact with the marshall. Relaying fuel, altitude, positioning. I approach and get my response, “Roger Ball,” and we’re good to go. The stubby runway in my focus ahead. I push into full throttle afterburner just as I clear the deck, the arresting wires catch, hydraulics slamming me into my straps to a full halt. I’m down, all is well. I crack into a wide smile, pleased that I haven’t gotten rusty in my time off. Things move quickly now, I pull back, raise the hook, looking to the right for my yellow shirt to direct me to taxi to my spot. 

I power everything down in the cockpit while brown shirts chain the jet to the bobbing carrier. We’re surrounded by the deck crew, welcoming us onboard with their bright shirts and elaborate hand signals. It's a silent chaotic symphony, perfectly timed and executed. 

I’ve landed on my new home, sea locked with 5000 other lonely humans. 

After debrief and meetings with the ship's hierarchy. I have a quick meal in the wardroom before making my way to the cabin. 

The stateroom, although cleaned out from its last inhabitants bore the pungent aroma of engine oil, bodies and testosterone. You can scrub all you want, but that shit’s never coming out. Airwing stateroom on the 01 level in a prime location directly under the roaring steam-operated catapult. Four males jammed into bunks, sharing toilets and showers with three other staterooms. It's what dreams were made of. 

Okay, nightmares. 

The creaking, the flaking paint, the rust leaching into every corner. She was an old ship, seven years older than me. It felt like we were both showing our age. I ponder how my life went from living in the Neptune Grand penthouse to _this._ It was certainly no cruise ship, we were here to work, and work hard.

Josh Campbell ‘Bounce’ isn’t far behind, he enters the room and takes the bunk above me, like always. He earned the name Bounce from quite literally bouncing off the runway and parking his trainer jet into bushes. Josh is my wingman, he’s been with me since the Academy. We bonded from the start over our inability to stay out of trouble with our superiors for more than a few hours at a time. He was a surfer too, of the East Coast variety and grew up with a fractured family and a shitty dad. It made sense that we gravitated towards each other.

He has a scar that runs down his face, below his left eyes that jaggers and sweeps toward his lip. Depending on the amount of beer in his system it might be from a bear attack, a bucking stallion fall or the sharpened blade of a transient mugger. Considering my knowledge from the shitty-dad brigade and his reluctance to ever tell the actual story I suspected his scars weren’t that dissimilar to mine. People like us locked them up tight, brushed them off with humor and snark in the hope that pretending they weren’t there might make them fade. 

It didn’t work, but it was worth a try.

It’s just us for a moment, a brief respite before further bunkmates arrive. “Is Leiha going to hold that baby in for you until you get home?” I ask as he leaps up into his bunk, his feet pull up and disappear, boots still on.

“I told her to keep her legs together," the voice comes from above. 

“That’s unlike you.”

A hand drops down, giving me the finger.

Of course, a family, an unborn baby at home makes my issues seem small, a momentary reality check. 

“Did you finish the drywall?” I ask after I abandoned him mid-tool passing last week for Wallace’s wedding.

“When I got the call to deploy I’ve never worked so fast before. All finished.”

“How did you manage without me?”

He laughs, apparently not lamenting the loss of my handiwork, “I survived.”

“Is Leiha going to list it now or wait until you’re back?” I query.

“I think we’ll wait.”

The thoughts of that house have swirled in my subconscious a few times over the last week.

“How did your wedding date go?”

If I was going to tell anyone, it would be Josh. What we talk about on the ship, stays on the ship. Navy code.

"The wedding went well, the whole week, in fact, got progressively better as the days wore on." I groan dramatically just thinking about it.

“That good, hey?”

“Better,” I’m serious now.

A chuckle comes from above, “I’m happy for you man.”

“Don’t be.”

“What?” he asks as he drops back out of the bunk and heads to his locker

“I left with a - think it over, try out some other guy’s approach.”

He looks at me, brow furrowed in disbelief, “What the _hell_ is wrong with you, Mouth?”

“I can’t even begin to explain.”

He empties clothes into his locker. “Fuck me! Five, six months of you waiting to find out if Veronica moved on. Kill me now.” He hangs himself with an invisible noose, complete with a final gasp for air.

The others enter the room, Paul ‘ALF’ Armado takes the bunk parallel to mine. Paul scored the ALF acronym - Annoying Little Fuck - he _just_ scraped in the height requirement for piloting jets and, at times, can certainly live up to his name. Luke ‘Burger’ Trelour takes the bunk beside Josh. Poor Luke engaged in a burger eating competition an hour before a flight, he then proceeded to decorate his cockpit with the remains of said burger. That was the thing about callsigns, do one stupid thing and they followed you around for life. In all honesty, I got off easy, ‘Mouth’ was just a basic observation. 

I head to my locker as the first day of catching up, goading and general grilling begins. Profanities grace each and every sentence with flair. 'Fuck off,' 'Fucking huge!' 'Fuck me!' They really are versatile. Of course, the saying 'swear like a sailor' didn't come from nowhere.

I start hanging my shirts and notice a sliver of yellow peeking out of the top pocket of my service whites.

I pick it up, holding it close to my chest, shielding it from three pairs of eyes only a few feet away. It’s a pale yellow post-it, black marker hastily scribbled on it. I recognize her handwriting immediately. 

The junior school rush fills me, like I've just received a note from my crush and I don't want the teacher to see and confiscate it.

It reads ‘Thanks for last night. Call me. V.’ and her cell number is scribbled on the back. I can’t help but let a smile spread across my face and I fold it up neatly and press it right back into the pocket for safekeeping.

* * *

**705 minutes since I left**

I strip off my shirt and climb into the bunk. I’ve got an early call tomorrow, I need to get some sleep. I draw the curtain.

Opening the photos on my phone I stare at the picture I took of Veronica this morning. It already feels like a lifetime ago, like I’ve transported into another world. I’m Navy Logan now, he’s the same man, but he is also different. Navy Logan crossed at least 3500 miles of ocean today and just _this morning_ had her in his arms. Already, the space between us causes me to lose sense of the feeling. 

I lay in the bed and send Veronica a message. She’ll want to know I’m here, that I’m safe. A devious smile crosses my lips as an idea springs to mind. I lie back in the bunk, pull my pants extra low on my hips, arm above my head and take a selfie, mimicking her semi-nude pose. I chuckle when I look at it.

Not bad.

Saucy, but tasteful. _Have I become a soft-porn connoisseur?_

I realize that I’m supposed to be back in the friendzone but it only seems fair if I’m allowed to have a topless photo of her, that she has one of me. We were at a cruising altitude of weirdness at his point so we may as well ride it out, bound to each other with compromising selfies.

 **6.51pm from Logan:** Home from work?

 **6.51pm from Veronica:** Yes. Just sat on the couch. 

Oh, to be with Veronica, on a couch. Dreams.

 **6.53pm from Logan:** I miss you already.

 **6.54pm from Veronica:** Not me, I’m enjoying all this couch space.

 **6.54pm from Logan:** Liar.

 **6.54pm from Logan:** Are you alone?

 **6.55pm from Veronica:** Just me, Bubba and all my other boyfriends. Why?

 **6.55pm from Logan:** I have a present for you.

I send her the photo, grinning mercilessly, imagining her reaction.

 **6.56pm from Veronica:** I accept this present with many thanks. My birthday is coming up… wonder what I’ll get then??

 **6.56pm from Logan:** Only time will tell. I better go to sleep.

 **6.57pm from Veronica:** OK. Goodnight.

 **6.57pm from Logan:** Goodnight. Xo.

It would be months before I got to see this woman, my friend, my love in the flesh again. I closed my eyes and prayed that she would wait. Because while I wanted the best for her, I selfishly wished that best would be me. 


	8. 147 Days

If you want to do a side-by-side reading here is the link to [147 Days for Spinster Table](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/58271335)

* * *

**Day 17**

Another day, another twelve-hour shift, walking endless steps around the carrier, passing hundreds of faces. I can’t possibly know all their names. Some of them smile, some of them don’t. I’m bone-tired from multiple traps today and hours of EMCON radio training. 

I tried to neatly compartmentalize my thoughts while I was here. When I was out, it was all about work, I buried myself in it; I was in the maintenance division so I spent countless hours in the hangar, surrounded by the planes and the workers. Joking and laughing and working my way through the pages of maintenance logs. 

Keep busy, just keep busy, Logan. If I dare to pause, even for a moment, she filters right back in. 

Veronica. 

I remind myself that this is my work, my career. A money-making enterprise endured by mature adults the world over. Most people would kill for this job. Being entrusted with fifty-two million dollars of government steel on the daily. Pulling G’s, getting to play (very responsibly, of course) with the coolest toys in the world. So why is this deployment so goddamn hard?

The ache for her was visceral, lingering in the back of my subconscious at all times. Eat. Veronica. Fly. Veronica. Spend five minutes alone in the shower, _definitely_ Veronica.

I’m only 17 days in and 4587 miles of ocean apart.

4587 miles to ponder, alone in my bunk, turning through the pages of my notebook, trying to find a quote, something less inspirational and more _telling._ Something that can communicate to her from across the never-ending barrels of swell.

Something to say: I’m here. Thinking of _you._ Please wait for me. 

I pick up the phone and record the message.

"This is Logan, with this week's inspirational greeting 'You know you’re in love when you don’t want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.'– Dr. Seuss."

* * *

**Day 24**

“I can’t believe you’re going to get paid more than me,” Josh complains as we walk to the hangar.

"I'm not sure who's the bigger idiot. You for not applying for the promotion, or me for getting it. Nothing says success like a fuckload more work for an extra seven grand a year. Back in the old days, I could spend seven grand in an easy afternoon."

"Ahhh old Logan. He was fun. Old Logan and I had good times, he always shouted the drinks."

"He had his moments."

"Just putting it out there, I don't give a shit what rank you are, I'm not going to call you Sir."

"Your Highness would be fine," I reply with a smile.

I’d opted not to have a formal pinning ceremony. Captain Dalton had insisted, but after a life in the reluctant spotlight, I was beyond the need for fanfare. He still made an effort though, dragging as many people into the hangar bay as possible and pinning me in a much lower-key affair. 

So I stand in front of my peers in my whites, with a smile from ear-to-ear. They cheer and crow like it’s the Superbowl.

The epaulets are fixed on my uniform, three gold bars beneath a star. 

Lieutenant Commander Echolls.

It had a nice ring to it.

I’m proud, I am. I’ve worked hard, studied, shown focus that I never knew lurked inside me. 

That little yellow Post-it sat in the pocket on my chest, over my heart for the ceremony. It was folded three times in a perfect tiny square. It bore the name Veronica on it, and her touch that was once there. All the cheers were nothing compared to the presence of that Post-it. It made sense, part of her being there, she was the catalyst for my forward progression.

Official duties completed, I wander over to partake in the cake devouring. Standing at the dessert table, I pick up a plate and Admiral Thomas appears next to me.

“Chocolate?” he asks.

I shake my head, “Vanilla."

He screws up his face before shrugging and cutting himself a piece and then one for me, loading in my plate.

“Recommendations from Commander Brennan, Captain Jefferies, and Major Daniels you’re either very good at your job, or very good at bribery…” he speaks into his cake, scraping off the icing with a fork. 

“Bribery Sir, some blackmail,” I say, quiet enough for only him to hear and he shakes his head with a smile. 

“Congratulations Lieutenant Commander.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Late at night, my stomach is still churning from the icing that I didn’t scrape off. I lay in bed and considered telling Veronica about my promotion, sending her a picture, telling _someone_ who cared. But, I didn’t. In-person would be better, _everything_ was better in person. 

  
  


* * *

**Day 31**

Trips to the computer room were intermittent, snatched moments between briefings and paperwork so I had to make the most of my limited time.

I email Veronica nonsensical garbage, then wait with bated breath for a reply. Classification laws prevented me from divulging any real insight into my current location or activities. So we kept things breezy and light, attempting to keep the communication lines open when cell service wasn't an option.

My fingers paused, mid-air, I stare at the cursor blinking before me before finally typing.

To: v.mars@gmail.com

From: navyboy@mail.com

_To her Majesty V. Mars,_

_Last night I went out on deck and I counted 378 stars before I gave up. It started raining and I decided I preferred to stay dry rather than keep counting. I forget how much we can’t see stars in Neptune. Floating in the [undisclosed] ocean, on moonless nights the sky is so black you put out your hand and you can't even see it. It's kind of like blindfolding yourself, twice, then walking into a dark closet. It’s one thing when you’re just out and watching the stars, is another entirely when you need to land a plane on a night like that._

_P.S. Eat a vegetable each and every day._

_L. Echolls Esq._

* * *

  
  


**Day 32**

When the response comes I read the words and feel her within them, emanating like electromagnetic waves from the out of date monitor. I see her in my mind, sitting at her work desk, or on the couch at home, typing away at the keys.

To: navyboy@mail.com

From: v.mars@gmail.com

_To the Honorable L. Echolls,_

_Hmmm… you’re in an ocean with stars… you’re really starting to narrow down your location there? I went out, as instructed, and I looked at these stars you talked about. I saw a homeless man lying in the gutter, eating marshmallow fluff directly from the jar, he offered me some. I declined. I looked up and thought I saw a star, but it was just some floating rubbish. If that’s not a metaphor for Neptune I don't know what is._

_P.S. I ate a sleeve of Pringles today for dinner, that’s potato, right? I think that should count._

_Yours Sincerely,_

_Vegetably-challenged Veronica_

  
  


* * *

  
  


**Day 47**

We’d been out all morning flying. I kept glancing at my watch, converting the time to Pacific Time, realizing that the opportunity to call her on her Birthday was swiftly drawing to a close. I didn't want to miss it.

I’d sent specific instructions to Dick, the way you would entrust coordinating a wedding with a five-year-old. He’d been given pickup addresses and times before I left, he was sent reminder texts one week prior, then final warning texts today. The cake and the pre-selected bouquet of flowers had been ordered. All he had to do was pickup and delivery. I’d also thrown in that he would receive bonus friend-brownie-points if he performed a lap-dance for her, clothing optional. But instead, when I call it appears that he’d made his delivery, enjoyed one too many celebratory beers, and promptly fallen asleep on Veronica’s couch. I would expect nothing less from Dick Casablancas.

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Veronicaaaa...”

“No,” she cries.

As I sing I can hear her squirm. Fuck, I love to make her squirm.

“Happy Birthday to you,” I sing with sugar, a slow smile spreads over my cheeks.

“How does it feel to be so _old_? I was going to get Dick to deliver a walker.”

She makes a derisive snort, “Watch yourself boy.”

“Maybe I should have gotten you a cane to pry Dick off the couch?”

“Just know that I’m making a mental inventory of all these smart-ass comments about my age buddy, I’m penciling it all in my diary, and in seven months… you’ll pay.”

“I truly can’t wait. You’re so cute when you’re vengeful.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“How was your day?”

_Terrible, without you._

“Good.”

“How was your birthday day?”

She pauses.

“Good,” she repeats in a similar fashion, then changes the subject, “I think Dick misses you, he drowned his sorrows in cake and only wanted to talk about you. Thankfully he didn’t cry, that would have been weird.”

“Weirder than his offer to strip for you?”

She makes a gagging noise, “Good point.”

“Put away any bad guys this week?” I ask.

“Not as many as I’d like.”

“Tell me fantastical tales of this week's great Neptune escapades… let me live vicariously,” I encourage.

“Hmmm… I worked, had a birthday lunch with Dad - got ice cream after - two scoops, fudge mint, then Dick came over and I ate an obscene amount of the cake you sent.”

“You are a terrible storyteller Veronica Mars.” I shake my head, “What are you doing sitting around eating cake with Dick? It’s a Saturday night, a birthday on a Saturday night what’s more, in some cultures that’s regarded as an opportunity to socialize? Meet new people? Fraternize with fellow members of our species?”

“Our species is overrated.”

I chuckle, “You know, in this experiment where I live with five thousand of them for a sustained period makes me kind of agree with you.”

“I really only feel an affinity for very few of these things we call humans.”

I humm in agreement. 

I just want to keep her talking, about life, about existential nonsense, about _nothing._ Just keep talking, let her voice etch into the membranes of my eardrum, so I can remember it for at least the next few hours.

“I didn’t always hate people,” she muses.

“You kind of did.”

“You’re tolerable, in certain circumstances… when you’re sleeping, for instance.”

“That’s because you use my sleeping body for your own personal pleasure. So many spoons, nooks…” I tease.

“Yeah, you really hated it.”

“It was tolerable.” I use her word back against her.

“Well, I’m going to say something and not just because you’re the Birthday Girl, which means I have to be at least twenty percent nicer to you.”

Her breath seems to hitch a little, she pauses. I want to keep her talking because I know with each word the moment I would have to say goodbye crept closer, like a shadow across my heart.

“You, Veronica Mars, are my favorite person of the whole species.”

I swear I can hear her smile, the sound is incredible.

I fight the urge to ask the question that haunts me, _is there someone else? Is it still me?_ It’s been 47 days, have you moved on?

In her reply, she answers the question I’d been unable to verbalize, “You’re mine too.”

It wasn’t an admission, or anything more than friendly nonsense, but it was something. I felt confirmation that she was still in _this,_ still waiting for me.

It felt like _my_ birthday. 

* * *

**Day 81**

“So,” asks drunk Veronica “What are you wearing?”

I take a deep breath and stare at the bunk above me. Drunk Veronica is a dangerous phenomenon. I'd successfully kept some questionable friendly antics at bay with sober Veronica. She seemed determined to breach the boundaries I'd formed on my departure.

She did as I suggested, going out to make some friends, but instead of making friends, she has too many margaritas and calls me. 

Not that I mind _at all._

“Veronica, we’re just friends, remember? Friends don’t ask friends what other friends are wearing in bed.” I absentmindedly run a hand back and forth over my bare chest wondering why the hell I’m still clinging to this ridiculous friend notion.

“We are friends, I’m just being _friendly_.” 

I imagine her vividly, laying on her pale blue sheets, with the tiny triangle pattern scattered across it. Her hair fanning out behind her on the bed. She’s wearing her black silk tank top, one fine strap has slipped off her shoulder leaving it bare. Jeans low on her hips, exposing an inch of paradise that I want to trace my lips across. She’s a little drunk, so her shoes are probably off, haphazardly kicked beside the front door, or directly in her doorway and she will trip over them in the night when she stumbles out for water. 

“Friends. No hanky panky,” I warn.

“I’m here. You’re there. I couldn’t hanky panky you if I tried.”

“If you were here … would you try?” I ask.

Well, I resisted her for a sum total of three minutes, excellent job Echolls. I embody precisely zero willpower.

“Without a doubt,” she replies earnestly. “So, back to my question, what are you wearing?”

I sigh deeply, and continue to feed the beast, “I’m just in boxers, I was planning on going to sleep.” It’s only 4 pm here, but it has been a big day. 

“Interesting,” she replies innocently.

I hesitate, don’t do it, Logan.

Don’t ask.

“What are you wearing?” 

Weak, I'm so fucking weak.

“Nothing,” she whispers back. The second her voice hits my ear, I feel the blood leaving my brain, traveling directly to my cock. 

This vision is even more dangerous than my previous one. I see her again, laying against those same blue triangles, this time, _all skin._

I look across, checking that my curtains are properly drawn. They are. The flecked fluorescent light from the desk seeping through the fabric.

I stay silent, scared to speak, to encourage her. 

“Tell me, Logan, when you said you were about to look at my photo, were you just going to look at it?”

“No,” I whisper, confessing the truth. I pull the pillow from behind me and place it over my head, like a silencer. Of course, the ship is never quiet. There is always the hum of the engines, constant machinery above, the creaking of the hull. All of these noises are excellent for disguising certain late-night activities.

On the carrier, you’re never alone, and occasionally there is the _need_ to take care of certain _urges._ Most of the time you just get it done as fast as humanly possible in the shower or silently in your bunk before someone catches you. Some people are better at masking their undercover activities than others. I took pride in my stealthy approach and zero strike rate for detection. Hence, my patented pillow silencer.

“So...” she encourages.

“Veronica, you’ve been drinking. We’re just friends, remember?”

“You can't take advantage of me in my drunken state from where-ever-you-are.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you what I do when I look at your photo,” she teases and I groan into the pillow, fearing that this little interlude would soon result in the end of my streak.

“I stare into your eyes, and I think about that morning you left. I think of the shower. When you slipped your hands between my legs and I run my fingers between my thighs and imagine they’re yours.”

My breathing quickens, I clench my eyes shut against the fabric.

“Your turn, What do you think about when you look at my photo?”

Am I going all in here? Seems like it. She is drunk and she calls _me_. She is horny and she calls _me_ . Honesty, worse things could happen. It made sense to succumb to her temptation and I also _really_ want to hear her moan into my ear.

“I think about that night at Wallace and Shae’s wedding, and I imagine what I should have done. What I wished I had the courage to do.”

“And what was that?”

My erection is resting against my stomach, just under my navel, pulsating, desperate to be touched. My hand travels down and pulls down the elastic of my boxers and my cock pops out, released from its enclosure. I run my hand along the length gently and whisper, “I imagine you beside me, running my hand along your stomach, turning you towards me and kissing you. Flipping you onto your back and running my lips over every inch of you, licking your perfect pink nipples, tasting you.” In the darkness, I can see it, vividly, her stunning breasts before me. 

“Oh God, I wish I did that.”

“Me too,” she sighs.

Without a fucking doubt.

I wrap my hand around my length, more firmly this time, hard and ready with visions of her. I stroke slowly up and down, pausing to run my thumb over the tip.

81 days without her. 81 days without sex. This isn’t going to take me long.

“Your turn.”

“I imagine soaping you up, feeling your hardness in my hands. Bending down and putting you inside my mouth. Tasting you. You are so damn tasty, Logan.” 

“Jesus Christ,” I whisper-groan, my pace quickening with the thought of the way her warm mouth wraps around it, the little tongue swirl she does that she knows drives me to the edge.

“And you lifted my chin and pulled me up and kissed me. You dropped to your knees, lifted my leg over your shoulder, your tongue dipped into me, and I couldn’t hold myself up; it felt so good. My legs started to give way, so you wrapped your arms under my ass and held me up, held me up and licked me until I came.”

“I never wanted to stop," I reply. It's true. 

I can hear Veronica's sheets rustling, imagining her, fingers buried deep inside herself. Talking to me, _thinking_ of me. I pull my hand away for a moment to steady myself. I don't want to come yet. I want to hear her come first.

“Then I stood up and kissed you, pushing you against the shower wall. I lifted your legs and wrapped them around me, and I dipped inside you. God you felt so good, Veronica, so fucking good, I couldn’t stop. I had your ass in my hands, and I came so hard."

“Oh, Logan," she cries out loudly, the sound of her orgasm music to my ears, it reverberates through me. I grab my cock again, more fiercely this time and stroke harder.

My balls tighten “Veronica,” I sputter out, thrusting my ass off the bunk, coming hard all over my abs in a mess.

I hear a light thud down the line.

My cheeks crack into a smile, still nestled under my pillow. I feel that post-orgasmic bliss rolling through me and stupidly confess, "Veronica, I love you, I miss you so fucking much."

I get no response. 

"Veronica?" I wait, hearing shuffles in the background, "Veronica?"

The sound of her breathing comes back on the line and I ask “Did you drop me?”

I don't get a response, just more labored breathing.

“Are you okay, Veronica?”

“No,” she replies.

“Are _you_ okay?” she asks.

“Absolutely not.”

“I feel like I should light up a cigarette?”

“You don't smoke,” she laughs, breathy and cute.

“Maybe I should take it up, for moments like these?”

“Moments when you have accidental phone sex with your _friend_?”

“Precisely.”

* * *

**Day 82**

The days start to blur, surrounded by masses of metal and the sea, vast, wide and endless. When we pull into Apra Harbor in Guam, land is a welcome relief.

As soon as we’re on solid ground, Josh and I take a taxi to Talofofo, hire surfboards, and hit the waves. After we’re sufficiently waterlogged we head into the main town. I take a quick photograph and send it to Veronica before strolling the stores, searching for a gift for her. 

I always bring her home a souvenir, the tackier the better. I find a little shop, selling mostly jewelry and I run my eyes across the table of wares. I almost buy her very own puka shell necklace, but put it down when I see the empty snow globe, sitting on the shelf. 

Our souvenir tradition stipulates that the gift must be void of any location details. It was all part of the game. I pay for the tiny globe, it's the perfect combination of smart ass and whimsical annoyance to drive her crazy. Just the thing for Miss Veronica Mars.

\---------

As part of my initiation as a Lieutenant Commander, I’m required to throw a party in my own honor at my own expense at the next port. It’s a wetting-down at a local bar in Guam. Navy custom dictates that due to my promotion the bar tab is my responsibility tonight, and everyone (myself included) is making the most of the drinks. The tiny bar is spilling with the squadron and fellow officers, it's _loud,_ very loud. The speeches are over now, thank god, my foibles have been related ad nauseam by my Captain and every squadron pilot with a memory and a mouth.

It's a kitschy tiki-themed bar on the main strip not far from the ship's moorings, a favorite for sailors. Featuring faux palm trees, ornamental surfboards and bar staff wearing coconut bras. The beer was cold, that was all anyone cared about after 82 days at sea.

We’ve now entered into the joke-telling part of the evening as it knocks past 2 am, and things are starting to get messy. I think I saw Rugrat vomit into a decorative plant, then pick up his glass and continue drinking. I _think,_ because my own sobriety is increasingly questionable at this point.

ALF attempts to stand and spills his half his beer on the bar, “Okay, okay I’ve got one,” he pauses to create the appropriate amount of tension and attention in his direction. Josh looks directly at me and rolls his eyes. 

“What’s the difference between God and a pilot?” 

“God doesn’t think he’s a pilot.” He cackles maniacally. 

I hold up my beer, taking the floor. “How do you know there’s a fighter pilot at your party?”

“He’ll tell you.”

I notice Kate is hovering closely behind me and one of the LSO’s, Michelle, isn’t far behind her. They seem to laugh the loudest at my joke, which is fine but we’ve all heard it a thousand times before. When she laughs, Kate touches my bicep and flicks her head back making her dark brown hair sway in the breeze.

The floor is moving quite a bit now. When you’ve been at sea for protracted periods and return to land it can feel like the ground is moving. So I take another drink, it seems to solve my land-sea legs, or I’m so drunk I can no longer feel it?

A woman across at the bar, sitting with another girl raises her beer bottle to me before taking a long sip, extra emphasis on the wet mouth around the bottle.

This is the problem with being single, _well, technically_ single. When we finally get a moment off the boat, away from the rules and the prying eyes, everyone is suddenly in heat. Combine it with the fact we’re sitting in an open-air bar on a stunning balmy evening in the Pacific with copious amounts of alcohol consumed.

Everything on the ship was amplified. We were locked in a floating high school, things were bound to get confusing sometimes. We were forbidden (at least technically) to copulate, which of course, means everyone just wants to get it on all the more. 

Kate and Michelle take their leave to the bathroom, leaving me with just the boys.

Burger scoffs as they depart, looking at me with indignation, “Why do you always have a harem?”

“I want a harem,” Alf groans sadly and sips his beer.

“You couldn't handle a harem,” I throw back chuckling.

“I would try,” he retorts.

Alf grumbles, “You waste your harem. It’s like you don't even appreciate it anymore.” 

I shrug. “It’s hard being looked at as a piece of meat. I’m a person too, I have feelings, dreams, desires.”

“Fuck you, Mouth,” he bites back.

We laugh and I run my hand through my hair, which is starting to grow out a little.

“See, even when you talk shit like you look so good that and even I don't know whether to punch your face or buy you flowers.”

“Peonies are my favorite,” I wink at him.

“Noted,” he replies, batting his eyelashes.

A glass smashes on the floor in the background, and someone screams TAXI, a brief reprieve from the attention on me.

“I just want to live vicariously through you, be a single man, let loose with your fan club. I bet they’d even both do you at the same time,” he groans.

Maybe, a while ago I might have had a bit of a reputation with the ladies. I was young and excited to be out of my own. But now we all suffer from the grass is greener malaise; I want the picket fence, they want the single life. They forget the realities and the loneliness that accompanies it. 

“Okay, enough!” I hold my hand out in a stop sign, sick of the grilling.

Of course, it continues, all the more due to my protest, bunch of insubordinate fuckers.

\----------------------

I walk out of the bar, beer still in hand, into the warm evening air. Half a dozen people stand in the street, the red glow of the cigarettes between their fingers. Kate appears behind me, following closely.

"Logan!" She calls out and I spin around. She smiles at me and I start picking at the label on my beer.

“Beautiful night,” she looks up at the sky wistfully.

“Mmmm.”

“I didn’t say it earlier, but, I’m really proud of you Logan, you’ve come so far.” There is a distinctive uneasiness that runs through me as she says the words. Like they're the right words, coming from the wrong mouth.

“Thanks.”

“I love Guam, it’s got some good memories.”

I nod in reply.

"Remember that time we got the hotel here, the bubble bath?"

I nod, focusing my attention up the street. 

"Want to revisit it Lieutenant commander?" she runs her fingers over my collar and trails down my shirt, a drunken effort at seduction. 

I shake my head. "Not really, no.”

"Come on, we can celebrate your promotion, the proper way. Just between us, no one needs to know.”

I stand before her, very drunk at this point. Distinctly wondering if I’m crazy. Bars, drinks, is this what Veronica is doing right now? Is she out, meeting new people, _like I suggested_? _Is some guy propositioning her right now, like Kate is propositioning me?_

I start to feel sick.

Kate looks at me confused by my lack of response, asking, “You’re still single, right?”

I laugh, bitterly. “Technically yes,” _but most definitely not._

I’m a single red-blooded male, standing before an attractive woman who is insisting I go to a hotel room and have sex with her. _What is wrong with me?_

I should say yes, shouldn’t I? Not one ounce of my being wants it. 

Leaning against the brick wall behind me, I turn and bang my head on it gently, over and over. Kate looks at me concerned. It’s a lesson in how to go from sexy to worried about your mental stability in warp speed. 

“Logan, I’m sorry. It’s cool.”

“Kate,” I stop my head banging and look at her, “You’re great, but I love someone else, we’re not technically together … it’s complicated.”

She takes a step back, suddenly embarrassed, “Are you okay?”

I nod and she retreats back into the bar.

I clung to the inebriated faint hope that the earth would open up, swallowing me whole and spitting me out in Neptune, next to my blonde love, instead of here, rejecting a brunette.

I fix up the tab at the bar and make my way back to the ship in the darkness, my steps zigzagging back and forth on the pavement, the ground swimming. On shore-leave, I normally get a hotel room to enjoy a brief respite, but we were due to sail at 7 am, it hardly seems worth it. 

I drunkenly ponder, surely there was a space-time continuum somewhere in the belly of this steel beast? A DeLorean, TARDIS, something, anything? Where I can slip back to 2006 and punch college Logan in the face, for not understanding Veronica’s fears, her inability to trust, for not trying harder. For using his right-hook instead of his words. Because college Logan’s inability to make this work robbed him of years with Veronica. Years I was now desperately trying to recoup. 

Then, we can re-emerge, past-shifted and Veronica is waiting for me at home, mini-vans, babies, dogs barking in the yard. Certainty. 

I collapse into bed, clothes still on and am asleep in minutes.

* * *

**Day - 87**

I open my locker in the ready room and start to strip off my flight gear. I wait until all the others have streamed out and Josh and I are alone.

“Hey, Josh, how much are you thinking you want for your house?”

He chuckles.

“What?”

“It took you long enough to ask.”

I narrow my eyes at him while pulling off my g-suit, wet from sweat, “How did you know?”

He shakes his head, “For you, 850, cut out the realtor’s take.”

I mull over the figures in my head, I had anticipated the price pretty accurately.

“Did you just spend that whole flight thinking about it?”

“Of course not, I was very busy doing my humble duty, my focus was wholly on the task at hand.”

_Yes._

“If you want it, Logan, it’s yours. Saves me having to get it ready to show it.” He sits on the bench and pulls on his boots, “I didn’t take you for the whole suburban two-bed two-bath white picket fence kind of guy.”

“Maybe I’m becoming that guy?”

“Have you spoken to her?” he asks, well aware of the delicate situation.

“Not about us, no.”

“If you’re thinking about buying a house dude, you need to start having some serious conversations.”

“I am aware of that, thank you.” I turn back to the locker, ready for this conversation to end, wishing I never started it.

“You wouldn’t even be thinking about this if you didn’t think that there was some chance, right? Get your ducks in a row, sort your finances, be ready for the questions when they come.”

I nod, knowing he’s right.

I head to the computer room and send an email to my accountant, Geoff. It couldn’t hurt, right? Just getting a feel for the options. I just wasn’t sure that I would be able to make the figures work. 

Who would have thought, Logan Echolls, concerned about finances? Baffling.

Four years ago, I’d stumbled into my accountant Geoff’s office and demanded that all of Aaron's assets, my share of the trust be donated. Naturally, he thought I was mad and drunk. He was right, I _was_ drunk, very much so, still reeking of whiskey from the night before. 

I’d been on leave, drinking in a bar with Dick and a bunch of random associates. Dick had shouted a round to the bar. Then for the next round, it was my turn. 

As I handed over my credit card, the bill well over two thousand dollars, Dick hooted to the crowd, “Thank you Aaron Echolls!” The crowd repeated his toast and then downed the drinks.

I froze. 

I stared at my drink, the drink that Aaron Echolls bought. From the grave.

It hit me like a roundhouse to the jaw. I was spending the money of the man who killed my girlfriend, whose actions caused the death of my mother, the man who very nearly killed Keith, and _Veronica._

I hated every single thing about that man, what he did, who he was, hated that no matter what I did, he remained a part of me. The thought of him festered like an open wound in the back of my subconscious and left a foul taste in my mouth. How could I despise him so fiercely and at the same time proceed to spend his money, treat it like my own?

That evening was the very last time. I used it to buy enough alcohol to nearly cause my own death. I woke on the pavement near the beach at midday, pondered taking it out of the bank in hundreds and dumping it off the Coronado Bridge, so it could float down like my lost childhood. I didn’t want any of it, not a fucking cent.

Geoff had made me sit on it for a week to “consider my options.” Apparently people didn’t regularly sign over twenty million in inheritance and royalties to charity. 

But I was done, the decision made, I was saying adios to my somewhat chaotic existence and past life. Money was useless, specifically Aaron’s money, at least to me anyway. I donated all of it anonymously to a women and children’s shelter. Maybe, just maybe, it would save one family from the unmitigated heartache that I endured. Childhood trauma was mine to farewell with the stroke of a pen. That’s what I told myself anyway and I think it healed me, at least a little.

When I didn’t see his money anymore, I had no reason whatsoever to ever think about him again. I was erasing him and his legacy from the earth, and I liked that idea just fine. I kept my change in financial situation secret for some time, I didn’t tell Carrie, and certainly not Dick. They would just think I’d lost my mind, and they would probably be right.

Now, considering the prospect of homeownership and the middle-class horrors of mortgage commitment was the only time in six years I’d even thought about the money. I wanted more than anything to just be my own man, I had no interest in his money and what that meant. I did, however, keep mom’s. There was around five hundred thousand left in the trust from her and I’m glad I kept it, it's the only part of her that remained. I think she would like the idea of me spending it on a house, especially one with Veronica. 

Mom always liked Veronica, she called her ‘sweet’.

So I had to learn how to live like a regular person. I was by no means frugal, but I had to consider my finances in a way that I’d never experienced in my life. It was oddly exhilarating. It made me feel like an adult, like more of an independent human than emancipation ever did.

Now I just have to wait for the accounting gods to tell me if this is a crazy pipe-dream or something within reach.

I stare at the monitor, awaiting a reply. 

The house was my ticket, the way of showing her that this was what I wanted.

You, me, _us._

* * *

  
  


**Day 94**

“Hey you.”

“Mr. Echolls, I thought you’d forgotten about me,” she replies, her voice is like my favorite book, I’ve read it a thousand times, dog-eared the pages, but I still want to pick it up again and savor each word. 

It's been a while since we spoke, the reception has been terrible, things have been busy again. We’ve been on missions each night for six days in a row, when I was getting a chance to sleep, I wasn’t sleeping well. 

“How are you?” I ask, because there is a sound to her silence, her breathing that is telling me that things are not all sunshine and rainbows in Neptune.

She replies quietly and listlessly, “This is torture, Logan.”

“I know,” I drop my head, “I’m sorry.”

There is a distinct tightness in my chest, a guilt that I’m causing her pain, but it’s also my pain. They combine together in a dangerous cocktail. Hearing her voice crack just makes it all the more real.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. This is your job. I’m so proud of you, for what you're doing. I guess I’m just struggling at the moment, ignore me.” 

“This is a big part of me V. If we do _this_ , I’m going to be gone a lot, sometimes I’ll be away more than I’m home.”

“I know,” she replies quietly.

“You’ve got the rough end. You’re the one left behind. I realize it must be difficult. I can’t imagine how I’d be if the tables were turned.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make this harder for you. I’m being ridiculous.” 

“No, Veronica, you’re not. Long-distance is hard. I don’t know anyone here who finds it easy. We’re all struggling in different ways. There is lots going on here to distract me most of the time, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss you, think about you.” _I think about you all the time._ “As your friend, I need you to know that I love you. No matter what you decide, I’ll still be there, okay?”

We’re both silent, content just to listen to each other breathe.

* * *

**Day 102**

I’m sitting in a cafe in Japan, enjoying a beverage of some form. I can’t actually read the characters, but the bottle is purple and bears fascinating pictures of coconuts and grapes complete with smiling faces. It’s quite delicious.

I look down at my phone, squinting in the afternoon sunlight.

 **9.49pm from Veronica:** It’s official, I’ve found another man

I read the text and stop breathing for a moment, staring at my phone in suspended animation. Here I was, sitting on the other side of the world, musing over the curious contents of my foreign beverage and she's found someone else. My eyes rapidly re-read the message over and over, like doing so might change the words and have them make sense in my mind. 

I swallow, hard. As I do, another text comes through, a picture message. I open it to a picture of Veronica, on her couch, snuggling up with a copper-colored boxer. Veronica is smiling, a wide, happy smile and I can’t help but smile right back at the phone like a fucking idiot. 

_I’m just so happy, she’s happy,_ and that she wasn’t talking about a human male.

I breathe again.

 **9.53pm from Logan:** I have to say the delay between the first message you sent and the photo was a little troubling for me.

 **9.53pm from Logan:** But, he is a fine-looking fellow. One that clearly enjoys your lap as much as I do.

 **9.54pm from Veronica:** Sorry, didn’t think about the delay.

 **9.55pm from Logan:** Is he a keeper?

 **9.55pm from Veronica:** He is.

 **9.56pm from Logan:** I think it’s a great idea. I can’t wait to meet him.

 **9.56pm from Veronica:** Hopefully sooner rather than later.

 **9.57pm from Logan:** I hope so too. X

Canine sidekicks were something that I'd always associated with Veronica. I was glad she was finding happiness and something positive to fill the days while I was gone.

  
  
  


* * *

**Day 123**

I spent the better part of today pondering stealing a jet and flying home. If only I could make it further than an hour and a half without running out of fuel.

123 days in and we are in the depths of shared-living hell, the stench in the room was otherworldly. At this stage, everyone's idiosyncrasies, which at the start I find endearing, just served to piss me off. Humans were not meant to live confined in such close quarters for a protracted period of time. Mass-produced, pre-prepared food had lost its appeal, even if it meant I never had to wash a dish. We were at the crumbs of the chip bag, there wasn’t much left to say, the jokes had all been told. 

I started to crave doing mundane things; grocery shopping, using an ATM, touching surfaces that weren’t made of steel. Every time I opened my locker I stared at that black duffel, jammed into the top shelf. I wanted to pack it again, I wanted to get the fuck out of here. That duffel and I had such a tumultuous relationship. I both loved and hated it, depending on where in the world I was and which direction it traveled with me. 

An inexplicable edge to my mood had been festering for the better part of a week. I was done with waiting, it was gnawing at my insides. I am ready to go home, I’ve started to forget the warmth of her skin, the way she tastes.

So I cling to the fragments of her I can access. A yellow Post-it, a photo of her, the soft pauses in her words as she leaves long, rambling voicemails. These get me through, those pauses remind me that I’m not alone in this, we are in this together.

Side by side, 5640 miles apart.

It’s just geography.

I hit the head and climb into bed with a longer than anticipated sigh. The sighs are definitely deeper, the longer into deployment.

This was a big one.

I open my phone and browse through my camera roll, watching the last few years of our friendship scroll past my eyes. I sigh again, shutting down my phone. Looking at pictures was only exacerbating my melancholy. 

The voice of Josh comes from above me, “Echolls, are you pining?”

“Fuck off,” I reply as lightheartedly as the swear allows.

“You sound like you’re pining.”

“Don't make me come up there,” I threaten.

“It’s okay,” he attempts to reassure me, “I pine too sometimes, just more quietly.”

I chuckle and draw my curtains.

  
  


* * *

**Day 132**

I hide in the bathroom to record this one, fucking people everywhere, I need to evade all the listening ears. It takes two attempts at the recording because halfway through someone walks in and unzips. I stand in the cubicle until I hear the door close, back in my little cone of silence. 

“This is Logan with this week’s inspirational greeting, ‘When we miss someone, often, what we really miss is the part of us that with this someone awakens.’ -Luigina Sgarro.”

As I turn off my phone I pray that I don't have to record many more of these. 

* * *

  
  


**Day 147**

Today, our captain gives orders for the squadron to return to base in two days. The feeling of elation permeates through the group. Of course, we love doing this, but we all want to be _home._ The first thing I do is pick up my phone. 

**11.35 am from Logan:** Good news

 **11.35 am from Veronica:** Well, what is it?

 **11.36 am from Logan:** We’ve just got word. Looks like I'm coming home.

 **11.36am from Veronica:** Do you have an ETA?

 **11.37am from Logan:** Soon.

Even if we only had two days left, we were still out for another night sortie tonight. No rest for the wicked. Not half an hour after I send the message, I’m back in the ready room and climbing into my gear.

I didn’t get seasick, but I was working myself up to it. The closer we got to getting home the more a peculiar feeling formed in my gut, a ball of anxiety and dread, combined with unbridled excitement. 

“How was the wife, happy?” I ask Josh as I slide my flight suit over my legs.

“Oh yeah, I might even make it home for one child to be born!” he fist pumps the air.

“Tell Veronica?” he asks.

I nod, knowing these two days are going to feel like a year in carrier time.

‐---------------

My jet is out of action today for maintenance, I’ve been put in Alf’s jet, he’s in the medical ward in isolation with a stomach flu. We make our way onto the deck, it’s black, black like ink and it takes my eyes a moment to adjust from the sterile lighting inside. There are no stars to count tonight. 

The gentle warmth of the trade winds were long gone. It was the beginnings of winter in the north Pacific, a harsh icy gale was the new norm. The wind stings my face it’s so cold, prickling against my skin. 

I check my ordnance with the WSO, run through the final checks of the aircraft and climb the ladder to the cockpit. Still performing my usual superstitious name touch, even if it’s not my own. As I do, I notice that the A in ALF has come off a little, half of it is missing. A sense of something strange lingers, I feel my spidey-sense-juju tingle a little. But I convince myself it’s just the weather, the nerves of night traps burrowing their way into my subconscious. I’ve spoken to the plane captain, I’ve checked myself, the plane is fine. 

Everything is fine.

Take off is textbook, we coordinate a training Self Escort Strike mission. This deployment we hadn’t seen any direct combat, it was an excellent opportunity to hone our skills. After my last two deployments in the Gulf, this was a welcome relief. 

As we start to reform for recovery. A high pitched alarm ‘neep neep’ sounds on my monitors. I look at the OBOGS indicator on the panel, it tests the oxygen in my regulator. Maybe it’s just a glitch? 

I continue onwards, it sounds again. I adjust the breather on my face a little, I feel fine, don’t I? I wiggle my toes to check. My digits seem to respond as predicted.

‘Neep Neep’ the alarm sounds again, the third time now. I wiggle my toes again, no change. I reach out to pick up my pen, and that’s when I notice it, my fingers are tingling. The pinky is the worst, on both fingers. Pins and needles. I relay a message to the boat, letting them know about my alarms, but as I speak, I realize my lips are tingling too. 

Fuck.

I fiddle with the regulator tubing, check the connection, checking for kinks, for a leak that would be causing a break in the oxygen supply. But I feel nothing out of place. Reverting to my training I turn the regulator all the way up and start to descend, as fast and as safe as possible. At the same time, I’m radioing the boat, relaying my OBOG readings. This is an emergency, everyone on the carrier will be scrambling. The rescue helicopter, the Angel, is moving in close to the boat. I need to descend and land as quickly and safely as possible. Of course, it’s pitch black, there is no moon. A night trap is exceedingly stressful at the best of times, this is taking things to the next level.

All signs are pointing to me being hypoxic, for some reason not enough oxygen filtering through my blood vessels. My cells and tissue are shutting down. It sneaks up on you, who knows how long you've been without an adequate oxygen supply? It was well known to manifest in tingling digits, and before you know it, you’ve lost consciousness, lost it all. I need to focus, I need to stay conscious. An unconscious pilot in a single-seat jet - is a very bad day.

My situational awareness is usually honed perfectly, but I can feel my brain fuzz. Marshall calls out for my stats and when I can’t read the monitors properly, I can _see_ them, but I don't know what they _mean._ I know it’s bad.

 _Calm yourself, Logan_ , breathe slowly, don't hyperventilate and draw more of the already depleted oxygen.

I descend as low as possible, all the while trying desperately to stay conscious. I can’t flick this mask off yet, we’re too high. I need to get below 18,000 feet. The air is more oxygen-rich at that altitude. _Stay conscious Logan_. 

With zero visibility outside, I watch the altimeter drop as I descend. 

23,000.

21,000.

 _Breathe slowly, Logan_. It’s harder than you imagine in a helmet with continuous oxygen or whatever the hell was or _wasn’t_ coming out of the goddamn mask.

18,000. 

15,000.

I clear the clouds into sleeting rain. When I hit 10,000 feet and I don’t feel an improvement I swat at my face, desperately clip off my mask and gasp in the ambient air. The fuzz fades, a little. My fingers are still numb and I can taste a distinct metallic tang on my tongue.

I now need to land this fucking plane, in the dark…

I pull down, they’re waiting for me. _Land Logan, concentrate_. You’ve done this hundreds of times now. Easy as pie. _Right?_

Marshall is talking me through it, he knows that I’m compromised, I need that little bit of extra assistance tonight. Paddles have come out too to help. All everyone wants is all assets back on the ship, safe, but tonight has other ideas. 

The deck is pitching before me as I come in. If only I could see it. _Concentrate. Concentrate._ Breathe Logan, let your lungs fill with air, everything will be better. The Carl Vinson rolls before me, up, down, side to side as I cross the deck, I hit the throttle, full afterburners. 

And I feel it, the distinct lack of feeling. 

The harsh pullback that should normally slam me against my buckles, doesn’t come. Sparks fly behind me in my peripheral vision. Instead, I’m launched, full speed back into the black. The radio repeating “405 Bolter! Bolter!” 

I missed the wires.

Holy shit.

I can hear it in the tone of voice coming in from control, this is not good.

I bank hard to the left and reform immediately to try to land again.

My Bingo cards are up, my fuel was getting very low, this was my last opportunity before I’d have to refuel mid-flight, which means going back up. Right now, I just wanted to be down. In the ready room, having a cold drink, tucking myself into my bunk, and thinking about being with Veronica in forty-eight hours. 

_Veronica, Veronica, Veronica._

My body is drenched in sweat, drips trickle down my face, I can feel it pooling underneath me on the hard seat. 

Descending again, this time the black seems to have more crosswind than before, I try to correct against it. I ‘dirty-up’ flaps down, landing gear down. 

Come on, Echolls. I try to sharpen my troubled mind, adrenaline does that. It helps to block the sheer terror. But my hypoxic body had other ideas.

I’m close, the deck before me, lights in a line. I fly the ball, or attempt to. Marshall is doing everything they can to help, but I don't know if it's working. Everything seems infinitely more difficult when I can’t _think properly._

10, 9, 8, 7.

 _Veronica, Veronica, Veronica._ It chants in the back of my mind like a choral hum. I focus on it. _Veronica_ , adrenaline, jet fuel, and the desire not to smash into the stern and explode into a million tiny pieces today. 

6, 5, 4.

Suddenly, the stern wall appears in my lights before me like a black mountain in the sea.

3, 2, 1.

  
  
  



	9. Home Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long, pandemics and life just got to me.  
> I've split this update into two parts, as we have a lot to cover off to wrap it all up.  
> Enjoy! :)

If you want to do a side-by-side reading. The corresponding chapter for Spinster Table is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/59522389)

* * *

I stare at the clock on the wall, watching the hands scratch by with rasping ticks. Squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights above, making obligatory head nods when I accidentally make eye contact with only other man in the small carrier ward. It’s 12 am. Or maybe it’s 12 pm? There are no windows so time is dictated by the delivery of meals, and the rotation of staff. Breakfast looks like lunch, which looks like dinner. No wonder I’m confused. 

When a gruff man appears beside me in scrubs, I decide it must be 12 pm. Gruff Sam is on day shift rotation.

“How are you feeling?”

_Like I want to scream._

“Fine.”

He rips the velcro in a harsh snap and wraps the blood pressure cuff around my bicep. More tests, _fucking fabulous._

“Have you slept?”

_How the hell am I supposed to sleep under fluorescent lights with checks every hour? How am I supposed to sleep when I am supposed to be at home right now?_

“A little.”

While he pumps up the machine, he looks at the monitor that’s taken up permanent residence on my index finger. 

“Your oxygen sats are good.”

“I feel fine. Can’t I leave?” my tone is dry and impatient as I kick and stretch out my legs under the blanket.

He chuckles feebly, the smile doesn’t reach his eyes, “No offense, but pilots are my worst patients.”

“And here I was thinking I was being reasonably well-behaved today.”

“I need to monitor you, Logan. A cut off of oxygen for as much as fifteen seconds can destroy brain cells. It can cause stroke, memory loss, vision problems.”

I clench, then unclench my jaw, “I am aware.”

“Good, then you are aware that I will not let you out of here until I’ve tested _everything_ .” He holds up a fat stack of papers, “I also need to submit all of this, complete with your test results so they can _try_ to work out what the hell happened to you up there.”

I put my head back against the pillow and let the tests continue in sullen silence. After he leaves I finally let my eyes drift close, but I feel a presence beside me and my eyes flick open again.

Josh is standing beside me, he passes me a packet of Cheddar Lays. I groan in delight, ripping the packet and shoveling the potato and faux-cheese heaven into my mouth.

“Once a celebrity, always a celebrity. Gotta always have the attention on you, Echolls, even if you’ve got to almost crash your plane to do it,” he jokes.

“I fucking hate celebrities.”

“We all do,” he looks around at the surrounding monitors, poking at a button or two before the attendant shoots him a death-stare.

“Man, they’re freaking out. They've just made the decision to ground the Hornets.”

I want to scream again; I kick harder against the sheets and Josh can see I’m ready to blow.

“Apparently there was a similar incident this week in a Growler. They’re going to replace the OBOGS and do some testing. Apparently, there have been over 350 _incidents_ in Hornets alone.”

We all know what testing means in the Navy, it can go on forever. I’m frustrated but I can see that this delay means that it’s likely Josh will miss the birth of his daughter. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t you, relax. I’m just happy you are alive! Fuck! Listening to your traps, listening to you on the radio. I could tell it was bad.” He shudders.

“Do you want me to call Veronica or Dick? I could get your phone?”

I shake my head, “No, it’s fine.”

“You _sure?”_

I nod. 

“But feel free to bring edible food up here anytime. I’m getting the slops from the mess and it’s not good.”

“Can do.”

He leaves with a fist bump and a promise of more chips and I’m left to sit and ponder alone, staring at the clock some more.

When you see your first flagged draped coffin or posthumous decoration it becomes immediately clear, this career is not for the faint-hearted. Mine was in 2013. I didn’t know him, I knew nothing about him. But I knew he was working, just like me, and then he wasn’t. His three-year-old daughter stood by the coffin, his wife hiding behind dark sunglasses.

But it wasn’t me, at least this time.

On the second pass, the black of the Carl Vinson before me, pitched down, heaving in the swell at the last moment. I was clear, I hit the deck. Hard. Banking too far left, catching the second arresting wire on the bounce. It slammed me into the ground, rattling my head against the seat in a fierce jerk. It hurt, it hurt like hell and I've got the black bruises across my chest as proof. But I’m not sure that I ever felt relief like it. 

I was out of that jet and into the medical ward on oxygen before I could fully comprehend what was happening. With a nice shot of pure oxygen, my vitals returned swiftly but I’m forced to stay in this bed until they deem me fit enough for release, or until I complain so much they let me leave.

In those moments, my life didn’t flash before my eyes - my future did. The opportunities, the things I could miss, the things I could lose, all because of fear. I didn’t realize quite how much I was looking forward to that hug from her on my return until the prospect of it was suddenly ripped away from me.

I know what I want now. I know it with glaring clarity, so much so that the reasoning doesn’t bear any further examination. The crux of it is, I need her. I love her. That should be enough. I’d been an idiot. Life was always going to pummel me with curveballs. It did for everyone. I just had to learn to catch them instead of letting them leave me bruised and bloody. One of those curveballs was falling in love with Veronica, again. What’s more, she loved me, and it appeared she was willing to take the blows by my side. She was willing to be there, despite it all. Love me, despite it all. 

I mentally slapped myself silly, realizing with absolute certainty that I did, in fact, want to live. Very much so, in fact. I valued my life more than Marla, or Veronica, or even I’d given myself credit for. Maybe it was being convinced I was going to slam 47,000 pounds of metal into the stern of a carrier? It really makes you think.

Explosions and death - bad.

Life - actually, pretty damn good.

I want to shout that it’s all fine, just a minor glitch, let me get right back in that jet. We were going home. _Supposed_ to be going home. But not anymore. I crunch the chips angrily and seethe in the hospital bed alone.

* * *

It’s eleven days before we’re given the all-clear to return.

Eleven.

Fucking.

Days.

The cause of the hypoxia is never determined, but as far as the Navy is concerned they’ve replaced enough to deem the problem ‘fixed’ so we all suit up and climb back in. Jet blast deflector raised, the flight crew attaches the towbar and holdback onto the nose gear. Crew circle the Hornets, final checks complete, the Shooter takes over, signaling full afterburners, all clear. He salutes, I salute in return and place my hand on the canopy. The catapult cylinders fill with high-pressure steam from the ship’s reactors. With a hiss and a deafening roar, I’m slung from still to hovering over the blue ocean in seconds. I don’t glance back, not even for a second, I’m only focused on moving forward, on going home. 

When I finally land on solid ground, take off my flight suit, de-brief, and head for the pick-up zone, I have to stop myself from running. I haven’t told Veronica about my pending arrival, mainly because I didn’t know the exact details myself. I wanted to call her, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t gloss over that everything was okay, when in fact, it wasn’t. So it was easier to just keep quiet. I would be home soon enough, and the day was finally here.

I did tell one person, and he waits for me, board shorts on, beside his silver Porsche. Holding a sign that says ‘Echolls’ like a private chauffeur. He gives me the obligatory high five and awkward arm-slap-come-hug. Even if this day turns to shit, at least there will always be Dick. He cares, he missed me, even if he won't admit it.

“Did you have a good tour, honey?” He asks, taking the duffel from my hand and throwing it on the back seat.

“It was super, darling!”

I jump into the front seat and he drives off at a speed not dissimilar to top speeds in my Hornet. We’re breaking land-speed records from San Diego to Neptune as Dick regales tales of all the ‘sick waves’ and ‘totally stacked’ women I’ve missed out on. 

Waving goodbye to Dick with promises of surfing and Call of Duty dates this week, I unlock my apartment door. It’s cool inside and has the smell of abandonment. My mail sits opened in a pile and little Post-it notes stick to the letters, showing PAID and notations of the check number associated. A candy bar wrapper sits on the counter. I follow a trail of distinct paw prints across the linoleum tracking to the couch where a fur outline of a medium-size dog has made itself home. Either my apartment had been haunted by Old Yeller or Veronica’s newest, furriest sidekick had stopped by.

I call Veronica’s assistant, Penny, to find out her schedule for the day, swearing her to secrecy. She was in meetings until noon, but Penny would let the front desk know I was coming.

Throwing the duffel onto my bed, I unpack it in seconds and put it back onto the shelf in my closet. We were friends again, that duffel and I, for the moment anyway. I head directly for the shower, the water extra hot as I rub my body with gratuitous amounts of soap, as if purging the ship from my pores. As I do, I recall the last shower I had in here, Veronica doing the rubbing for me. I take deep, steadying breaths, readying myself to see her after such a long interval.

I dry, slipping on civilian clothes and reveling in the simple softness of a designer shirt. A quick glance around makes me realize I missed nothing about this apartment. Everything I bought for this apartment is bought based on necessity. Couch. Basic. Bed. Basic. My life had been graced with such gratuitous opulence that I’d become numb to the lure of material possessions. I liked nice things, sure. I still drive a BMW and have a penchant for Tommy shirts, but I wanted something more, something permanent. Everything about it seemed temporary, like it was a whistle-stop on the way to another destination. I just hadn’t zeroed in on that destination.

Until now. 

It came into my focus, starting in the periphery and moving into full view. Geoff, my accountant, had confirmed that the house was well within the means of my current salary, add Veronica into the mix, and it was a shoo-in. This knowledge ticked another box in my mind. I just need to talk to Veronica now. Talking about things that _really_ mattered was not my strong point. But I’d resolved that that was going to change. I was going to change. 

Veronica and the house were just the starting point.

* * *

When I arrive at Veronica’s offices, I show my ID and sign in. The bored receptionist points to the elevators, but I opt to take the stairs two at a time. I am back in peak physical condition. Without Veronica’s late-night snacking temptations, my body-fat-ratio was back on-point. I need to expel some of this energy pulsing through me, the nervous excitement that threatens to burst from my veins. 

When I arrive at her level, Penny is waiting by the elevator doors. She’s all bouncy and young, perfect brown hair in a perfect little brown bun. I appear behind her, tapping her on the shoulder. I sweep my hand from behind my back and pass her the bouquet of daisies. There is no other word for it, she swoons.

“Penny, I’ve missed you,” I bat my eyelashes, and she swats at me playfully. 

“Oh, Logan, when did you get home?”

I glance at my watch, “three-ish hours ago.”

“O.M.G. Veronica is going to F.L.I.P!” Penny loves to spell out words, I’m well aware this grates on Veronica’s last nerve. I had no doubt she dotted her i’s with love hearts too. She’s young, she’s fun, let her spell out the words if she wants. I learned early on that if I wanted unimpeded access to Veronica’s office, then making friends with her assistant was my best bet. 

“It will be nice seeing your face around here again for lunches each day; will you come to the Christmas Party?” 

“Hopefully.”

We walk over to Veronica’s desk and I lean against it, looking at the paper strewn about the keyboard, two empty coffee mugs, one of which reads: _I hate being sexy but I’m a fighter pilot so I can’t help it_. Her chair, her pen, all of her _things._ They’re probably still warm. 

“She should be out of the meeting any minute, I’ll go get a vase,” Penny waves the flowers about and collects Veronica’s dirty mugs, straightening up her desk one-handed, “Thanks again, Logan!”

Veronica rounds the corner with an attractive male. I enjoy the vantage point of being able to observe her, moments before her eyes find mine. The casual way she’s ignoring him talking, the way she’s looking around the room instead, her body language speaking volumes. Her eyes land on me and she pauses mid-step, I take a sharp intake of breath and a smile spreads across my cheeks unhindered. Something changes instantly in her demeanor, her pink lips curl and she stares at me transfixed.

One look at her and it reinforces that my universe begins and ends with us. 

I walk over to her, eight steps, maybe ten, my gait wide and quick, like I’m floating but also like I need to get to her as quickly as possible, without running. 

_I want to run._

I hold my breath, struck by the sudden fear that this vision of her would suddenly disappear on my exhale. It didn’t. She’s still here, before me, a vision in a pale pink blouse.

She takes a step forward, head cocked to the side, like she can’t quite believe that I’m here, in front of her. She is so close I can see the blue strands in her eyes, flecks of green. We meet in the middle and I wrap my arms around her. Squeezing her so tight that her little heels come off the ground.

Restraint. I’m summoning restraint in droves, in reserves I didn’t know I possessed when I release her from my arms and place her back down on solid ground.

“Hi,” she speaks with a wisp of disbelief. I squint, looking at her unbelieving, like I was suddenly seeing in technicolor after months of black and white. _Was she always this beautiful?_

 _Yes_ , she was.

“Hi.” 

“You’re back.”

“I’m back.”

I was sure she would scold me that the protocol in these situations would be to call first, not just appear at her desk after a five-month absence. She didn’t like surprises. Which, like anything, made me want to surprise her all the more. 

“Are you playing copycat?”

I laugh, “I don’t know, are _you_ playing copycat?”

Her eyes roll, “Wanna get lunch?”

“Yes!”

After breaking our embrace, I slide my hands into my pockets to stop me from reaching out and touching her. They keep trying to come back out, so I shove them back in harder.

She walks to her desk, grabs her handbag, and is back beside me in seconds. I let my hand win and one drifts to her lower back as we walk towards the elevators. 

“When did you get in?” 

“Flew in a few hours ago; I went home and showered, hung up my cape, changed into my human clothes.”

“So, did you save the world?” she nudges against me playfully as we wait for the doors to open. She wants to touch me just as badly as I want to touch her. I considered counting the touches, but thought that might be weird. I steal a glance at her in the mirrored reflection of the elevator doors. I see my relief, reflected in her eyes. She looks down shyly. 

“You’re standing here, aren’t you?” 

A slow smile crosses her lips, “How was Japan?” she asks.

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. I’m not surprised in the least, this is Veronica Mars we’re talking about. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if I’d found a tracking device stitched into a false bottom of my duffel. 

“Serves me right, underestimating the youngest registered PI in Californian history.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Of course, I refuse to either confirm or deny that assumption,” I stare at her, eyebrows raised. 

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” I laugh at her response. 

“Wherever I was, it was a good tour, reasonably low stakes, lots of good flying time.” 

It’s true, except for the minor incident _,_ which we will get to, eventually.

* * *

We order lunch, medium-well rib eye for me, rare for Veronica with an extra side order of baked potatoes to share. Veronica gets us a bottle of Merlot. She makes small talk, touching her cutlery repeatedly, sliding it back and forth. I feel it too. The nervousness of being with someone after such a long absence, the air heavy between us, so much riding on my return. 

She tells tales of her latest cases and I listen to every word enraptured. The bottle suddenly empty, the plates cleared. How does time pass in a carrier in extended hours, like I’m walking through molasses, then I’m back here with her and suddenly, a click of the finger and it’s over?

“Logan Echolls,” she looks at me over the rim of her glass like she can’t quite believe that I’m sitting before her. “You’re very sneaky just showing up here, after weeks of nothing,” she points at me, her wine glass sloshing dangerously.

“I like the element of surprise.”

“That do you,” she sweeps her hair back over her shoulder like a scarf. 

“How’s your new man going?” I ask.

She looks at me, eyebrow cocked, momentarily confused.

Subtext: Is there _actually_ a new man on the scene?

“And you brought him to my apartment too!”

She laughs, taking a long sip of her wine, “Oh, you’re referring to my four-legged _new man_?”

I nod. 

How can it be that what should be the most exciting part of my life, fast jets, new countries, new faces, all just seemed ordinary? How Veronica’s smile, the way it breaks into a soft laugh, fills me with more joy in three seconds than my last five months combined?

“Hollow is good, you know, a typical male, likes to mark his territory, has separation anxiety, and steals my underwear each time I leave them out to dry.” I already feel like Hollow and I are going to be great friends.

“Is he toilet trained?”

“Yes.”

“Does he drool?”

“Yes.”

“Does he sleep in your bed?”

She smiles, “I plead the fifth.”

“Hmm,” I reply with a devious smirk.

She takes a deep breath and another sip of wine. Her lips hover on the glass for a moment and I’m unreasonably jealous of stemware.

“You sure ask a lot of questions. Am I being cross-examined?”

“I’ve been gone a long time, I’ve got lots to catch up on.”

“Hate to tell you Logan, not much happens around here anymore, especially when you’re gone.”

“I doubt that.”

“So, you didn’t meet any _new_ people?” I ask, emphasis on the _new,_ eyes locked with hers.

Read the subtext, Veronica: Is there anyone else?

Veronica gives me a bemused grin, “Why would I want to meet new people?”

I chuckle.

“Wait! I went to Wallace and Shae’s Halloween party!” she adds excitedly, as if I will bestow bonus points on her tally for effort.

“I drank Bitches Brew and ate Halloweeno Jalapeno Poppers,” she says with raised eyebrows. Shae’s Halloween parties really were something else. 

“Did this Bitches Brew contain actual bitches?”

“I’m pretty sure it was vodka and cranberry juice with floating eyeballs.” She looks down at the table before adding under long, batting eyelashes, “I wore a costume...” She lays the bait.

“What _kind_ of costume?” I gobble it up.

“Catwoman.”

“Black, latex suit?”

She nods and I swallow, hard.

“Cat ears?”

She nods again, grinning.

“Tail?”

Another nod. I bite my knuckles, fucking deployment. I need to change the subject before I ask for photographic evidence.

“So, in the absence of meeting new people, general socializing, which we all know isn’t your style... you had plenty of time to reflect, right?”

Read the subtext, Veronica: Have you made up your mind?

“By reflect, you mean, sitting around and watching countless episodes of Unsolved Mysteries and Forensic Files, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then, I can confirm, I reflected plenty.”

I lean back against my chair, “No further questions, your honor.”

She smiles, "Permission to cross examine _my_ witness?”

I nod as she leans closer; I join her, our faces inches apart.

“What about you?” She turns the tables, “Did _you_ meet any new people?” she asks before suddenly shying away from eye contact, instead focusing on her napkin, folding it one way, then another. When I don’t answer immediately, it forces her to look at me, blue eyes floating back to mine. 

“No. No new people,” I reply, and she bites back a grin.

Subtext: It’s always been you, Veronica. Only you.

Of course, speaking in subtext never got me anywhere. But it was a marathon, not a race. I wasn’t ready just yet, and neither was she. We needed to warm up a little before the hard topics came out. And if I know anything about Veronica Mars, it’s that she likes to run, far, far away from hard topics. So instead, we’re taking a gentle amble to what we really want to say. 

Veronica’s phone rings. We’d gotten lost in the time and Penny was giving her an extra-perky reminder that she had an appointment in court this afternoon. She hangs up, disappointed.

I pay the bill and we walk back to her office, our typical slow wander with the dusting of an occasional arm brush. I left her in the peak of summer, vacationers galore, never-ending sunny skies and the humid air floating up from the Sea of Cortez. It’s nearly Christmas now, and while it’s cooler, it’s barely enough to warrant the use of a jacket. The stores are decorated, tinsel and lights adorn every storefront. 

We finally arrive, standing outside the elevators, hovering. Veronica doesn’t press the button. I don’t press the button.

“Come to mine for dinner tonight?” she asks.

“Sure.”

She gives me the world’s most awkward thumbs up. Veronica Mars, decorated lawyer, expert in criminal law, presenting deft arguments to judges, juries … is so lost for words she gives me a thumbs up. 

More awkwardness tingles between us. Would it be weird to give her another hug?

“Oh wait, I’ve got dinner at Dad’s tonight. Come along?”

“Are you sure?” _No, no no!_ It’s not supposed to happen this way. I love Keith, I really do, but this wasn’t the evening I had planned by any means.

“Yes, Dad would love to see you. I’ll call him and let him know.”

_Great._

“Okay, see you later,” she pats my arm and throws me a final glance. When she looks at me I feel a strange ache in my stomach, like I’ve been kissed and punched at the same time.

“Later.”

* * *

I arrive at Veronica’s apartment a little early. My hand runs across the top of the frame, finding her spare key in the dust and I unlock the door. I’m excitedly greeted by a boisterous Boxer, who attempts to climb up me like he’s waited his whole doggy life for this moment. In his elation, his tail thumps back and forth, clearing the coffee table of all of its contents in one fell swoop. I drop to my knees and allow him a closer inspection. Hollow sniffs my hands, legs, shoes, circling me multiple times. 

“Hey Buddy,” I come face to face with him as he settles.

He looks at me, wide brown eyes with dark brown rings, a thin white line running down his face chasing down either side of his hanging jowls. He’s suddenly stoic, leveled breathing and calm, assessing me at close range as I inspect him. I rub my face against his and laugh as he bounds back up again, energy returning, and I scratch my hands across his fawn torso.

I look around her apartment. Nothing has changed, except for the dog bed and the lead hanging by the door. It’s a little disheveled, paperwork covers the dining table, Chinese take-out boxes forming a precarious tower in the trash. I steal a glance at her bedroom like it’s forbidden territory and I see it, sitting on the edge of her bed. My t-shirt. The Calvin she wore the morning I left. It sits worn, inside out on the bed.

Can a shirt give you hope?

I place the little box with a yellow ribbon on the edge of the kitchen counter and flop down on the couch. Hollow joins me, paws perched across my legs. I thumb through a magazine, killing time, my eyes constantly flicking to the door, waiting for her.

“So, I hear you’ve been keeping her company?” I ask Hollow, his head pops up from my lap with attention.

“Do you like it here? I bet you get plenty of attention, walks, overfeeding?” his tail starts to flicker.

“You moving in on my girl?” He looks at me, head tilted to the side. 

“You better not be…” I make finger eyes at him. “I waited almost six months for this day. You better not have been sleeping in her bed.”

“I saw a photo of you… your head was in her lap," I rub behind his ears as I talk, he warbles with pleasure. 

“I’m going to ask you one more time, have you been sleeping in her bed?”

He licks my hand. I think that's a yes.

“Have you? I’m being serious?” I look at him in the eyes. He takes a protracted blink, jowls trembling, the beginnings of drool glistening from his mouth. 

“Did she tell you about me?”

Just then the door opens and Veronica appears, interrupting my interrogation, somewhat surprised to see me on her couch with her furry associate. 

“Hey! Stop snuggling my man on the couch!”

It appears that we’re both harboring a jealous streak in relation to the dog. “Are you talking to me? Or him?” I ask.

“Now I’m not sure,” she replies as Hollow propels himself off the couch and into her waiting arms. 

Yep, I’m jealous of a dog.

“You know, he’s been a bit nervous around men, it’s lucky he didn’t maul you, just wandering in here.”

“He was perfectly gentlemanly. He greeted me at the door, licked me, showed me to all your hidden possessions,” I stand to join her, Hollow looks between us, torn, like he’s not sure who he wants to pat him more. 

She rubs him behind the ears, “You make a terrible guard dog, letting all the riff-raff in.”

“What’s with his name?” 

“No idea, he already had it at the shelter.”

She escapes to her bedroom to change for dinner, reappearing in jeans and a sweater, poking at the box I left on her kitchen counter. 

“What’s this?”

“It’s a souvenir,” I motion to it like a prize on The Price is Right.

She rips the paper, opening the box and pulling out the empty snow globe, then stares at me, a wry smirk upon her lips.

“Get it?”

“Oh, I get it.”

“It practically covers me now forever for souvenir gifts while I’m on tour, right?” She holds it up, playing with it, tipping it upside down, letting the snow settle, then tipping it again. White flakes drift and float like confetti in unseen currents. Her pink lips, bottom one drawn into her mouth as she bites it, distorted from behind the clear plastic.

“Thank you,” she puts it back down on the counter but keeps looking at it with a smile. That smile is doing things to my insides, scrambling them up like eggs. 

“You’re welcome.”

“Do you mind if we take Hollow for a quick beach run? Just five or ten minutes before dinner, try to tucker him out?”

Hollow must have heard his name and ‘run’ in the same sentence, and he stands by the door expectantly, nudging his hanging leash with his wide, square shoulders.

We take Veronica’s car, parking on the beachfront, letting him bound out the second the door opens and hitting the sand with abandon. Sulky moonlight ripples across the waves as we walk in silence. Veronica is keeping a distance from me, which I take as a direct sign that now is not the time to discuss _us._ It makes sense, with Keith’s dinner looming. Confessions over a family dinner were never wise. 

So we quietly watch Hollow, expelling at least a little of his energy in flailing gallops down the beach, in and out of the waves, walking side by side. 

* * *

“I have to admit Dad, I thought we wouldn’t be the only ones at the table tonight,” Veronica waggles her eyebrows at him over garlic bread, a streak of amusement hitting her mouth.

“We’re having a night off, this is family night, Logan’s back, we’re focusing on Logan.” He points to me, and I sit back, confused.

“Am I missing something here?” I look between them.

“Dad’s got a _lover,”_ she enunciates the word slowly and dramatically, baiting him.

“Keith! Good job, didn’t know you had it in you old man,” I join in the baiting and raise a glass to him.

“You two, you act like I’ve got one foot in the grave. I’ll have you know I’ve still got lots of staying power, both in and out of the bedroom!” 

“No, just no,” she says, shaking her head.

Keith chuckles, satisfied that he’s disgusted us sufficiently.

“So who is it?” I ask, curious.

“Alicia,” Veronica answers for him.

A broad smile crosses my face, “Well, well, well.”

“It’s not a big _thing,_ we’re just taking things slow.” He looks at me, pointedly, “Not as slow as _some,_ but still slow.”

Keith stands and moves away from the table with the speed of Veronica avoiding a tough conversation. It must be a Mars’ thing. 

When he comes back depositing a large hot dish of manicotti onto the table all is forgotten or forgiven, I can’t even remember where anything started with the presence of real home-cooked food before me. 

Somewhere after seconds, or maybe thirds, father and daughter battle back and forth about the choice of dinner. I had inadvertently sided with Keith over Veronica and now she threatens me, delicate index finger pointing at my chest in some kind of challenge.

“You better watch yourself, Lieutenant Echolls,” she winks.

“I think you mean Lieutenant _Commander_ Echolls,” I reply without missing a beat.

The response is immediate. Veronica stops moving, eyes lock with mine. They warp into a broad grin, sparkling at me. Her blue depths momentarily unguarded and filled with something surprisingly pure. 

“Really?” 

I nod and she leans across and punches me on the arm for keeping this secret from her. Then she rubs her knuckles. 

“Got my epaulettes last week.”

“You’re a sneaky shit,” she chastises me and I wink back at her. I would be a sneaky shit every day of my life if she looked at me like that again. Pride, her eyes are filled with pride, and it hits me so hard I could fall off my chair. She says nothing else, just stares at me with a far off grin.

Keith rummages in the liquor cabinet searching for a celebratory drink. “Excellent news Logan, we need to celebrate.” 

Veronica nudges my leg under the table, I nudge it back. 

“Okay, we’ve got an option of scotch or an eight-dollar bottle of Merlot from Chile?” He holds up both bottles.

“Scotch,” we answer.

He opens it, pours three glasses, and we chink in cheers.

“To Lieutenant Commander Echolls,” she says.

I drink my scotch, eyes locked with Veronica while Keith grins somewhere in my peripheral vision.

* * *

She rolls up her sleeves with purpose, squirts in the dishwashing liquid, and blasts hot water from the faucet. Veronica tosses a dishrag to me and deposits a dripping plate onto the dish rack. Keith sits at the table, still enjoying the scotch after catching me up on all the baseball games I’d missed and his current golf handicap.

“Are we doing a Secret Santa this year?” Veronica asks.

“If we are, I want Logan,” Keith replies.

“You don’t get to choose,” I add.

Veronica shoots me a look, “Yes you do! I want Dad.”

I shrug, just happy to be included at all, “He’s all yours.”

“Dad, I’m your Secret Santa and I'm getting you a dishwasher.”

“Um, I think you might be missing the key concept of a _secret_ Santa?” I add.

“I don’t need a dishwasher. I have the Veronica 3000. She’s a slight upgrade on the previous model, she cleans just as well with only slight complaining.”

“You just set feminism back 50 years, old man.”

“Feminism sheminism.”

I sit this one out.

Keith excuses himself to take a phone call, and we’re suddenly alone for the first time in hours, cleaning and stacking away dish after dish. 

“Watercooler gossip tells me you bought my _Assistant_ flowers…”

“How else was I supposed to get up to your office without alerting you directly?” I ask.

“I’m sure you have your ways. Now she is definitely in L.O.V.E with you,” she spells it out, just like Penny. I chuckle while drying a glass and placing it into the cupboard.

“So, what, no presents for me?” 

“Aren’t I present enough?”

She grins and looks out the window in the darkness.

“What about the snow globe?” I ask, close to her ear as I reach behind her to stack a plate, my torso grazing her back.

“I love that snow globe,” she whispers low, and a delicious tension starts to hum in the air between us.

Veronica passes me a saucepan in silence, and I glance at my blurred reflection in the metal pan. It hits me that I’m suddenly ready to do this, ready to talk to her, it’s time to get this all out in the open, if only we weren’t standing in her dad’s kitchen, him in the next room. 

Veronica has a red checkered tea towel slung over her shoulder. She uses the back of her wet wrist to swipe at the hair falling in her face as she scrubs. Without hesitation, I put the pan down on the counter and stand behind her tucking her hair behind her ears. 

Her body goes rigid for a moment before her shoulders fall and she relaxes. I slide my hands around her waist, under her arms, plunging them into the water. Scrubbing ceased, I seek out her fingers by touch. When I find them I run my finger down her thumb, then intertwine them with my own. They lay buried together beneath a blanket of bubbles. 

_I want to make pancakes for you every morning_.

I place my chin into the crook of her shoulder, cheek to cheek, and we both stare down into the suds. I lift her hand, take a sponge, and together we slowly scrub at the pot. Round and round, at the same time I’m massaging her hand, breathing in time with her. Veronica leans back against me, into my cheek, into me, and I inhale her like a promise, unopened.

_I want to kiss you before bed each night._

It feels like for a moment; the earth stops revolving. The slosh of the water is the only sound I hear, and _us._ Together, _touching_ after months apart. The wandering lost feeling I’d had for five months disappeared. I’m suddenly here, with her, and the universe is right again because it’s _our_ universe. I don’t want to think about what happened before, or what might come, all that matters is her back, pressing into my chest right now. It makes me feel alive.

“Can we go soon, _please_?” I growl into her ear while caressing her in the hot, soapy water.

“Yes,” Veronica replies.

I pull my hand from the water, tracking it up the side of her torso, up her arm, resting it with a feather touch against her clavicle. Little bubbles trail all the way there, I ghost my lips against her neck, rubbing them back and forth lost in the softness of her skin. I can see her nipples peaked against her shirt, straining against the fabric, I too, am straining against fabric. I want to kiss her, but not here. Everything has a time and place, and the time and place is _not_ Keith Mars’ kitchen. 

The proximity of her reminded me of one hundred and fifty eight days that I hadn’t had her in my arms. Now she was here, with me and I’m holding onto these delicious morsels of time, hoping, praying that at the end of the day her answer is yes. With my lips at her neck, she groans into my ear. It was at that moment that my trickle of hope became a flood, one that our hands are submerged within.

“That is going to be the cleanest pot in all of Balboa County!” Keith’s voice comes from behind and startled, I pull back abruptly, untangling our digits.

Suddenly, I’m sixteen again. I chuckle, picking up the pot and not-so-casually resume my drying while Veronica blushes crimson and stares into the water. Keith looks at me with a creased grin, beaming at what he’d just witnessed, or the reaction that it produced. 

“I love having you back, Logan, don’t get me wrong, but it’s late, I’m going to turn into a pumpkin, I think it’s time you two went home, let me get my beauty sleep.”

He’s giving us an out and I’m going to take it.

We collect our coats and say our goodbyes in a sudden, hurried scramble. Keith walks us to the door, Hollow follows. 

"You know, Dad, I've changed my mind. Logan can have you for the secret Santa, I don't think you need a dishwasher."

Keith belly laughs, holding his chest. 

"Goodnight kids!"

* * *

  
  



	10. Home Part 2

Veronica parks the car in front of her apartment and unclips her seatbelt. Instead of getting out, we sit, waiting for the inevitable, the unspoken. The streetlights ricochet scattered dull beams across her troubled face. Her fingers are temporarily illuminated as they rise one by one to tap on the steering wheel, bordering on irritating. 

I shift restlessly in the seat. 

The only one immune to this awkwardness settling between us is Hollow, laying against the rear seats, snoring. Oblivious.

“Okay, I think this needs to happen now,” I begin.

Veronica takes a few more taps of the wheel, and I glare at her hand.

“So, have you had a chance to think...about everything?” I try for an easy smile, but I feel the strain on my lips. Asking a question when you know the answer could be the beginning of your end is more difficult in reality than in theory. Her 'no' would break me into a million pieces, in a million ways. I would never recover.

But my question brings an immediate, resolute response from her, eyes locked with mine, “You know my answer, Logan.”

“Do I? I need you to say it, Veronica, _out loud_.”

I hold my breath. 

“Logan, my answer has always been that I want to do this. I want to be with you. Nothing has changed for me at all.” She answers directly, blue eyes finding mine, pale in the evening light.

I freeze. Unsure of what to do next, like I’d forgotten the sequence of events that might follow this kind of declaration. I’d waited for so long for the answer, for _this_ answer, I felt relief crash through me and let a smile crease my cheeks.

“Good.” Is all I can muster in my internal elation, so I reach out, taking Veronica’s hand in mine, lacing our fingers together again in this dry setting. They feel just as good, just as warm, just like home. 

“I want to do this too,” I add.

“Are you sure?” Her small hand squeezes mine for reassurance, I squeeze back.

“I’m sure, just as long as you’re fully aware that I’m still me. I’m going to do stupid shit inevitably, and I’m going to piss you off.”

“You piss me off now, what’s the difference?” she says with a smile.

We sit quietly for a moment. 

“Well, thank fuck for that,” she says exhaling, I can see her shoulders release like a weight is lifted and I feel some of my own weight lift too. 

I roll my thumb over hers, staring at her hands, “I thought about you every day. Every morning when I woke up, every night I went to sleep, and I realized, why am I fighting against the only thing in the world that I want?”

“That’s a great question. But seriously, you need to go easy on yourself. We’re in this together, we’ll ride the chaos together, right?”

I nod. 

“You realize all the reasons you hate yourself are just some of the reasons I love you?”

“You’re weird,” I reach out and brush her hair behind her ear, focusing on her lips, watching the way they move, excited by the rush that comes from knowing I will touch them in seconds.

“And that’s just one of the reasons I love you,” I whisper in a frayed breath. 

Fingers infused with the lemon scent of Keith’s dish soap wrap the base of my skull. She pulls me into her, lips against mine, slowly, lazily bringing them together time after time, controlled and careful, a reconciliation. Her hands drop to my neck, each kiss growing deeper and deeper until a tongue peeks its way in, I’m not even sure if it’s mine, or it’s hers, and with it, all control is lost. 

I can feel every thrum and shiver of Veronica’s body against mine. I burn for her. A fierce flame that pulls me towards her. I can’t look away. Fingers clutch resolute, exploring the soft contours of her. Making up for lost time, growing faster and more hurried as they track across, the anticipation of her before me blurring any judgment. I would dream about this every night in my bunk. I knew it would be good. 

I could never dream it would be like _this._

One minute she is beside me, the next she is on top, straddling my hips, pressing against me. With increased momentum, her thighs rub against me. Cock roaring, pulsing, strained against my jeans as I delved my hands into her shirt, sharing intermingled breaths and sloppily undoing her bra, tracing the mounds beneath. Her mouth hot and unrelenting, communicating a suppressed craving, suddenly permitted.

“Logan,” she stops, pulling her lips off mine, they’re only an inch away now, but it feels like miles. Kissing her hadn’t alleviated my thirst whatsoever, it had only made it worse. 

“Hmmm,” is the only response I can muster.

“As lovely as this is and as astonishing that it is that you or I don’t have some form of PTSD from our previous vehicular rendezvous, we are not teenagers hiding from parents, dry-humping. I am too old to fuck you in the car, in front of a dog.”

“Okay, well, we need to get inside, _now_.”

The three of us exit the car in a frenzy and sprint the stairs, Veronica locks Hollow in the laundry, I wait for her by the door. Impatiently.

The second it’s closed I spin her to face me in the darkness, forehead against forehead, I tickle down her spine, closing in.

“Veronica Mars,” I whisper.

“Logan Echolls.”

“Are you ready? Five months without you. I’ve got serious time to make up here, and I intend to do each and every thing to you that I imagined while I was gone.”

My face against hers, I trace her bottom lip with my tongue, tasting her. She grinds herself into me, lust in her eyes. Her hand rolls over the excruciating bulge in my pants as she nibbles at my neck, “Such as?” 

I take the bottom of her shirt and inch it over her head, her bra still unstrapped from earlier drops to the floor. Her exposed breasts and hardened nipples before me.

“First, I’m going to taste every part of you, because I dreamt of your skin,” I drop to my knees, hard. Like I’m worshipping at her alter. 

This can’t be real.

She can’t be real. 

I take her nipple in my mouth, gently swirling, her back falls against the wall as I suck at the hardened bud. She burrows into my hair, fingernails raking. I shift my attention to the other nipple, leaving the first wet, peaked. She thrusts her hips towards me and I unbutton her jeans and slide them off her hips, leaving her lace underwear on. I smooth my hands over her thighs, bare and radiating heat. Black lace panties were but a decoration, a meagre scrap of material. I lean down and taste her through them, and she tastes so fucking good. Fingers pull at the flimsy material and insert themselves into her sultry wetness. I might just die, right outside Veronica’s laundry room door.

But I would die happy.

I can hear her begging, “Please,” she keens closer and I drag my finger deep inside, coaxing her wet deliciousness. But I need a proper taste.

“I said _every_ part of you,” I reply, parting her legs gently and replacing my finger with my tongue and zealously lapping at her silky folds, slipping my tongue back, letting it sample every morsel. 

Fingernails delve harder into my scalp, pushing me further. Fingers slip back, first one, then two, hovering at her entrance before burrowing inside, over and over again. My lips suck her clit, unrelenting. I listen to the sounds of her breathing, the stepping stones of her arousal. We’re nearing the last jump, I can tell. 

“God, Logan!” she moans. My raging desire for her amplified tenfold when she rocks against me, clutching at my head. Her cries tumble in the darkness and I try not to lose myself in the sound as she clenches my fingers inside her walls, again and again. I don’t want it to end, happy to sacrifice my knees to the cause, my entire body. 

As the throws subside, she takes my ears, gently dragging me back to standing, back against her, against the laundry door. 

“That was even better than I imagined,” I whisper. Her eyes flutter open as I reach her face and she kisses me, tasting herself on my tongue. 

I can hear the dog stalking back and forth behind the door, pacing, surely concerned about the noises coming from his owner on the other side. 

“I think we need to relocate before we traumatize Hollow forever,” I say, lifting her by her ass, legs wrapping my torso, heels hooking behind and stumbling into the bedroom in the darkness. She yields and melds herself around me, her face buried in my neck, breath feathery in my hair.

Veronica scrabbles at my clothes, trying to scratch them off, unzipping my fly and running her hands across my chest, kissing my stomach. She slowly takes my length in her hands and slides it up and down in her fingers. A finger sweeps the tip, swirling the anticipation that remains there. I lift my hips off the bed, but bring her face back to mine, crushing our lips together and flip her beneath me. Reaching down beside the bed I find the small lamp and flick it on. 

I need to see her. 

The light shocks us and we squint against it, but it quickly settles and my eyes find hers. We pause, unblinking. Her exposed flesh beneath me in the light is my undoing. If losing oxygen at 45,000 feet didn’t kill me, this surely will.

“You and me?” I ask, she nods, biting her lip before reaching down and taking me in her hand, she directs me into her. 

I submerge myself in Veronica, she’s like velvet, soft and warm. My weight on her, sinking us into the soft mattress as I slip in and out. Lips re-connect, tender and languorous and they don’t break apart as time unspools before us. 

Hands roam my back, my neck, through my hair, leaving an electric trail as we find our rhythm. I clasp the sheets in my hand, and she rolls her lips towards mine, she seems to be searching for something to grab, so I take her hand in mine, press it above her head and she squeezes it, hard. 

The feeling starts to build, Veronica’s moans grow more desperate, she breathes them into my mouth. I swallow her moans until I can swallow them no more, until they become ragged cries and she calls my name, thick and heavy and each and every muscle contracts around my cock.

Suddenly I’m living and dying all at once, my balls tighten and I feel the release spilling into her, white-hot flashes against my eyes and I close my eyes for the first time. Feeling myself collapse onto her, the relief is overwhelming. 

Slowly we lapse back into reality, coming up for air in shaky breaths, from the pile of limp entangled limbs. I push my chest back up, cradle her jaw and dance kisses across her damp forehead. Blue eyes join mine and an intensity burns within them, making me see what she’d been saying. 

She loves me. 

_Me._

* * *

I’m stirred at 4.30 am by the constant revolutions of Hollow circling his mat at the foot of the bed. He spins, settles for a moment, before getting back up, spinning again to find the sweet spot. I turn and watch Veronica beside me, even breaths falling from her mouth. 

Try as I might, I can’t find sleep again, time-zones fuck with you like that. An East to West time zone change is always particularly bad. So I rise and get dressed. Hollow rises with me, nails clicking on the tiles, following me into the kitchen. When I touch his leash, he goes from casual acquaintance to devoted cult follower in a heartbeat. 

I lay towels on the leather seats and warn him to stay in his designated ‘zone’ before letting him jump into my BMW. We drive the few blocks to the beach, just as the sun is blooming on the horizon in radiant golds and flame reds. I take off my shoes and wander down the beach as Hollow barrels into the waves. The fine grains underfoot thread through my toes with each step, leaving deep prints in my wake. 

My mind is clear, for the first time in months. I’m not worried, I’m not overanalyzing, I’m just breathing. In and out. The cool, salty air in my lungs and I’m relishing every second of it. I’m happy. 

I stay until the sun has made its way well past the breaking waves. Hollow collapses beside me, tongue protruding long and wet from his mouth, sand sticking to his jowls. The clouds are already starting to dissipate, it’s going to be a beautiful Californian winter’s day. 

We sneak back through the door and I drink in the sight of Veronica through hungry eyes. Sheets curl around her slight frame, bare shoulders exposed, and an avalanche of blonde hair covers her face and pillow. I climb in, resting on my arms above her. 

“What is wrong with you?”

“Morning beautiful.” I kiss her nose and nuzzle into her neck, “Sorry, I can’t sleep. Jet lag, time zones. I waited for a few hours, but now I’m bored, and I want someone to play with.”

She pulls me into her love nest and attempts to get me back to sleep. 

“Logan, I’m tired. _Someone_ kept me up all hours, insistent on pleasuring me until I collapsed. Not all of us can survive on three hours of sleep. Why don’t you take Hollow for a walk?”

“Already did.”

“Fine, make yourself useful and call in sick for me today," her voice raspy and sleepy. 

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“Well, if you’re home. I’m having lunch with Josh and Leiha today, wanna come along?”

“Is this the same Josh you just spent months at sea with?” 

I nod.

“Are you officially in a bromance?”

“I might be,” I cross my fingers.

“Okay, I will go with you on one provision. You call into work sick for me, and you leave me alone to sleep for at least another hour.” Her eyes close, settled on the idea. 

“Deal. What do you want? Leprosy, Syphilis, explosive diarrhea, sex-induced psychosis?”

“Let’s just go with a sore throat. They know it’s bullshit anyway because everyone saw you in the office yesterday.”

“Good point.”

I tuck the blankets up and under her chin.

“Sweet dreams,” I whisper as I close the door. 

* * *

I browse Veronica’s shelves and find a scrappy, high school edition of The Outsiders and flop onto the couch, quickly losing myself in the lives of the Greasers and Socs’. Somewhere around page 41 Johnny and Pony Boy fall asleep under the stars and my eyes start to drift with theirs.

I’m awoken by a soft mouth, tongue exploring, I mumble something and clutch a fistful of blonde hair between my fingers, awaking properly and returning the kiss. Scared to open my eyes, scared that it was all a dream, unbelieving that this was my truth now. 

The kiss swiftly moves to feverish and audacious as my hands wake with the rest of me and find Veronica, wearing only a shirt, _my_ shirt. _Nothing_ else. I’m suddenly _very_ awake and she pulls back and nestles into my lap.

“You should have been sleeping, in bed, with _me,_ not on the couch."

"I should have," I answer back, a devilish glint in my eye. My hands roam to her ass, disappointed the groping had ceased so suddenly.

“I called in sick for you.”

“Tell me, what malaise has incapacitated me today?”

“Sex induced mania.”

“It’s always better to keep it nearest to the truth.”

“That was my reasoning.”

“We better go,” she peels herself away, trying to leave, but I pull her back in.

“ _You_ set up a _morning_ playdate with _your_ friend Mister, so don’t blame me.”

I groan releasing her reluctantly, cursing myself and my stupid grand plans. But before I get a chance to raise myself from the couch she spins on the spot, finger pointed at me. 

“Before we go, I just want to clarify something...” She says, and her tone has shifted. She came to me as loving, yielding Veronica, and in a blink, she morphs to Veronica on the trail, a whiff of blood in the air. Her eyebrow cocks and she looks at me. Something is amiss and she _must_ know what it is. 

Now.

“So, are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you?” I _think_ I know what she’s asking, but I’m reluctant to dig my own hole.

Hands go to hips. She’s not as scary as she thinks wearing no pants.

“What happened?”

 _Oh shit._ That.

“But how…?” I start.

“Let me tell you what _I_ know.” She begins, and the pacing starts. Like, I’m being questioned as the accused. 

“So you’re delayed eleven days, no contact. So naturally, I’m curious. I look into news reports. Nothing ‘official’ stands out, but there is chatter on forums, chatter about Hornet groundings, chatter about the Carl Vinson. Undetermined reports. Then you come back and you tell me that all was fine, ‘reasonably low stakes’ were your words, but you didn’t make eye contact. You pulled your hands into your sleeves. That’s your tell, Echolls. Then, you take your shirt off and you have healing bruises across your chest, big ones, lines like a harness, two down the sides, one across the middle.”

I stare at her, mouth agape. 

“I was _going_ to tell you.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow?” I ask, wondering if it’s the right answer.

The look on her face indicates that my answer was most definitely, the wrong one. She stands, waiting for the explanation.

“I lost oxygen on a flight. I lost some cognitive function and motor skills.” I start, her face instantly falls, a flash of pain, like she expected _something,_ but not this. She moves closer, takes my hand and nods at me to continue.

“As you can imagine, it's difficult to land like that, so it took a few tries. It wasn’t great, the bruises are from the landing. They were worried about my loss of oxygen, I was confused, parts of me were numb. I ended up in the hospital onboard for a couple of days. Then, of course, they can’t just let us climb back into planes like that. They needed to try and work out what was wrong.”

She’s back on me, tenderly touching my chest, hand resting on my heart.

“Jesus Logan, that must have been terrifying?”

I nod, “I couldn’t remember how to land, I couldn’t remember how to move, the only thing I could think of,” I cup her face in my hand, her eyes welled, still worried, “was you.”

A sad smile slides in through her concern.

“You’re okay now?”

“Good as new."

This causes the sad smile to turn into a warm one, legs straddle me, hands wrap my neck and she burrows herself into me. Chest to chest.

Latched on, face beside my ear she whispers. “Honesty Logan.”

I sigh.

“I know.” The cornerstone to this working would be honesty. 

“On both sides,” I add.

“I know,” she replies, voice small. 

* * *

Josh is giving us the official tour, without giving us the ‘ _official tour’._ Leiha sits it out in favor of resting her feet and very pregnant belly on the couch, occasionally calling out to remind Josh of important features he’s forgotten to show us. The little girls are following us around, hiding behind furniture, giggling. We’re all playing the game, pretending we can’t see their glaringly obvious hiding spots. Which makes them giggle all the more. Walking down the wide hallway, the oak floors squeaking underfoot, tiny feet hot on our heels.

“The house is nearly a hundred years old. With kids you’ll quickly get used to which boards squeak.”

Veronica shoots me a quizzical look. I, in turn, shoot Josh a warning glare. He smiles, rolls his eyes and continues. 

“All of the beams were hand-carved, and I’ve replaced a lot of the drywall, over years it had become quite bowed.”

“See that wall right there?” I point to the far wall, “I did that one, see how straight it is?”

Josh booms loudly with laughter, Veronica does too, like it’s infectious. I’m not sure what’s so funny?

“I did!”

They keep laughing in their shared joke and continue the tour. The bedrooms flank either side of the wide hallway, each room has built-in bookcases and window seats beside multi-paned glass overlooking the manicured lawn. High ceilings with exposed beams adorn every room with varying pitches. Walking through to the open kitchen and lounge area, glass french doors open to a large patio. All of it built around the centerpiece of the house, a large river rock fireplace, alight with embers, gently warming the room. In the back yard a large old oak tree dominates the far corner, a tire swing hanging from its base. Steps nailed into the trunk snaking their way to a rudimentary treehouse a few feet off the ground. 

It's simple but elegant.

Small, but home. 

Brash columns, gilded staircases, infinity pools, maids. They were a brand of extra that I just wasn’t interested in anymore. 

We sip our coffee around the dining table and talk _adult_. About work, about babies, about finding a good insurance broker. It’s funny how censored our conversations are compared to on the ship. Especially with small ears nearby.

Veronica’s hair is gathered into a ponytail, resting low, exposing her neck. Each time she spoke, muscles shifted and it transported me to lips against it last night. My lips were ready to revisit it again today. She was _here,_ within touching distance. I could pull her into my arms if I wanted to, and she would let me. 

“So, can I assume that things are official?” Josh asks, looking between Veronica and I. Our fingers laced together under the table, sitting on my lap. I run my thumb back and forth lazily across her knuckles and lean toward her, a natural response to her nearness. As nice as the house tour is, I just want to be alone with her again and Josh can tell.

I nod, not even trying to hide the smug grin from my cheeks.

Josh claps loudly, “Thank God for that! Spending five months with this pining mess was wearing thin. I’m in the bunk above him, hearing him cry himself to sleep every night.” 

I throw him a private, murderous glare. My pining is my _own_ business. He volleys back a shit-eating grin.

“Fine, fine, he wasn’t actually crying, but his silent stressing was quite annoying.”

“Did you say you guys were together in high school too?” Leiha asks, steering Josh away from the ribbing.

“On and off, yes,” I reply, giving Veronica the _look_. The one that says, don’t worry, I will not divulge the horror of our teen years over coffee. Re-hashing that shit storm needs hard spirits as an accompaniment. 

I finish my coffee, I can see Veronica has finished hers. 

“Not that I didn’t enjoy spending the last five months with you, but, I think maybe it’s time for us to go. I’m sure you guys want to spend some time together,” I say.

Josh gives me a knowing smile and we all say our goodbyes with promises to meet up for a proper dinner after the baby is born. 

We sit in the car and a nervousness floods through me. Maybe I’d put too much effort into this? Maybe I was way off. Surely this was too soon to be bringing these kinds of topics into the relationship? The one that technically started about sixteen hours ago. 

“Their kids are lovely, their home is lovely. Are they pod people?” Veronica asks, looking toward the house.

“I don’t believe so,” I buckle my seatbelt, “You like the house, huh?”

“It’s incredible.”

Fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? I’d wasted the better part of two years exercising caution and restraint around Veronica. I was tired of it all. Tired of waiting. I knew exactly what I wanted, and this time, I was going to be honest about it. 

I put the keys in the ignition and say, “What if...what if I bought it _, we_ bought it?”

“That house? Is it even for sale?” she looks at it again, mouth open, inspecting. 

“Not yet; Josh mentioned he was going to put it on the market. They need to upsize, it only has two bedrooms. I’ve been here before, I knew it was amazing.”

“Can we even afford it?”

“I still have Mom’s inheritance money. My income, your income. We’re both paying rent, for not much more per month that could be ours.” 

Veronica is listening to me, but her eyes are fixed upon the house.

“I don’t want to waste any more time V. I want to come home to you. I don’t want to go back and forth anymore. It could be your apartment, or it could be mine, or here. I don’t care. I just want it to be with you.”

She doesn’t speak and I pull at my shirtsleeves, tucking my fingers within them. 

“I never really got to have a normal life, a normal house, you know, a home. Casa Echolls was always a shitshow. When Josh mentioned it, I just thought that maybe it was something we could have, something that we deserved?”

She turns back to face me, an unreadable expression on her face.

“Can I think about it?” 

I smile, more than happy with that response, “Take all the time you need.”

* * *

I cross my outstretched legs at the ankles and lean back against the cushions. This was all I ever wanted. Veronica, me, a couch, a pizza box on the coffee table. Her body, warm and soft against mine. Hollow laying across her legs, watching the pizza box intently. 

“Just for the record, I wasn’t really pining. I think Josh was exaggerating slightly.”

“No?” a finger runs down my temple, then sweeps her hand through my hair. “You didn’t pine for me?” She teases, a tender light in her eyes. 

“Maybe it was just a mini-pine,” I pinch my fingers together and smirk at her playfully. 

She nods, knowingly “Like a pinelet?”

“Yes, exactly! A pinelet. A silent pinelet. It wasn’t like I was going around moaning to everyone about you. I was discreet.” I was certainly moaning internally, but I saw no need to divulge that.

“Discreet Logan… does not compute,” she answers in a robotic voice before looking at me seriously, that PI, you-don't-have-to-tell-me-but-I’ll-find-out-another-way look.

I kiss her on the head, hoping to close the subject.

“I pined,” she says quietly.

I smile, wide, “You _did?”_

“Great big pines. I pined into Hollow’s fur, buried my face into him and pined. To be honest, I think he pined for you too.” She nudges him and he breaks his attention on the pizza box for a moment to look back at her, then returns his gaze to the object of his desire.

“I hadn’t even met him until yesterday,” I chuckle, touching the soft velvet of his ears.

“He knew something was missing.”

“So we were all pining. A little and a lot.”

“Mutually pining you might say?”

“You might.”

She looks at me with soft eyes, hand swirling on my chest. 

Sometimes I feel as though I’ve lived multiple lives. Each one separate and distinct. Each life, a different version of myself in a different set of circumstances. Some lives I've lived we're good. Others are fucking terrible, horrific nightmares that I can't escape from. But each time I get to shake the confines of the previous one just that little bit more.

Change. Adapt. Grow.

This life, like most of my lives with Veronica, is a good one. My favorite yet, I don’t want this one to end. This is the life I want to keep.

Forever.

The world will invariably get it our way. Shit will happen. Maybe even chaos. But I figure we’ll withstand all those trials and tribulations better together. Things are always easier together. 

“I was thinking I probably should take you on a date then?” I say.

“A date? “

“Yeah. You know, dinner, wine, movies, wooing, all that stuff.”

“Wooing, you say?” she looks at me excitedly.

I waggle my eyebrows

“So, in Logan’s world it’s step one: ask a girl to buy a house with you. Step two: go out on a date?”

“Okay in retrospect I might be a little backward. Are you questioning my process?”

“No, not at all. “

“How about you take me on a date tomorrow and then you take me past that house again? For a proper look.” She holds my gaze, connected, like she’s anchoring into my soul. Just like every look she gives me, has given me, for the last sixteen years. 

“So, date first, house second?"

“Yeah.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Veronica hooks a leg over mine and scootches down the couch. I lift my arm and she burrows in, ear to my chest. Warm. Snug. Home.

"You give good nook," she mumbles into my chest. 

"Thank you, my love," I reply, head down dancing kisses across her brow.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last official chapter! Agh. What a wild ride.  
> Thank you to everyone for your support and comments I appreciate each and every one.  
> I've got a nice little epilogue to wrap it all up that I'll post in the next few days.  
> \-------  
> As always, Aurora2020, your friendship and beta skills have saved me and this fic. Thankyou!


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A final thank you to Aurora2020 who has been the beta on every chapter of this fic. 🙏

If you would like to do a side-by-side reading of the Epilogue in Spinster Table, you'll find it [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069796/chapters/59568598)

* * *

There are days when I’ve spent the better part of a year away from those I love. Those are the bad days. The days I wonder if I’ll miss Christmas, again. Or another birthday. I wonder if she will keep waiting for me at all. 

But she waits. She always waits.

Sometimes patiently. Sometimes not.

Then there are the good days, the ones that are so good, they outweigh the bad. 

Days when I’m a week into extended shore leave and I’m preparing the batter, ladling it onto the griddle pan in wide, flat lumps. 

Your mom sits on the couch, Hollow has curled his body into a tight snail beside her, her feet rest atop, bare toes run back and forth absentmindedly in his fur as she reads. She looks up from her book, and her eyes connect with mine, _into_ my soul, and I still get chills down my arms like I’m fifteen. 

“Why is this so hard? There are so many options and I don’t like any of them,” she laments.

“They can’t possibly all be bad.”

I watch the tiny bubbles form on the pancakes, coating the entire surface before taking the spatula and flipping them one at a time. One flip misses and drips its innards over the side of the pan, it crusts and burns.

I wonder if you’ll like pancakes?

“ _Yes_ , they can.”

She rubs her hand across her ballooned belly, smoothing her fingers back and forth, she’s searching for you in there, wondering who you are, who you’ll be.

It doesn’t really matter; she loves you already.

“Layla?” she asks, nose scrunched up, unsure, but continues reading.

‘Of Egyptian and Arabic origins, it can mean ‘wine,’ ‘intoxication,’ ‘night,’ or ‘dark beauty’. Popularized by Eric Clapton’s 1970 hit song ‘Layla.’”

“Good song. Stellar guitar riff. Not sure about the name though.”

She nods. You’re not a Layla.

“What does Veronica mean?” I ask.

She flicks through the pages, a sliver of a pink tongue concentrating, eyes flicking back and forth, scanning the page.

“Veronica: Latin for _Truth.”_

I laugh animatedly, clutching at my abdomen. Your mom throws me a cautionary glare with a dusting of a smile. 

She does that a lot. You’ll get used to it.

“Well, if it’s a boy, it must be Logan II, no question,” I say.

She snorts, which is easy to do when eight months pregnant and your perfect little body is pushing all her organs into her chest cavity. She snorts and snores, quite a bit lately.

But don’t tell her I said that.

“So, if it’s a boy, we’ll just call him Logan Jr.? Or just Junior?”

With a dramatic eye roll, she continues to flick through her book.

“Logan: derived from the Scottish Gaelic _lagan_ , which is a diminutive of _lag_ , which in turn, means ‘hollow’.”

She stops reading and looks at the dog underfoot. I peel up my head from the crucial final seconds of pancake-watch and laugh out loud.

“No wonder he loves you so much, you have the same name!”

“Hey, I didn’t name him!”

“Neither did I!”

We laugh together, bemused and Hollow cracks a dark brown eye open briefly, wondering why we were disturbing his mid-morning reverie. I’m not sure Hollow is sufficiently prepared for the swift change in lifestyle that will happen when you come into this world. But I think he’ll adapt.

Our chuckles abate and your mom continues with the book in silence. I turn off the stove, slather on pats of butter, pour gratuitous amounts of maple syrup onto the pancakes, and take them to her, resting them on her belly.

On you.

“They look extra fluffy today.”

This is how your mom says, ‘thank you.’

Positioning myself next to Hollow, I lay my hand on her rounded stomach, letting my fingers dance lazy lullabies on her skin. I wonder if you can feel them? 

I am anchored into the future that is given shape by your little life growing inside her. I’m getting impatient. I’m ready to meet you. I’m ready to be your dad.

“Madeline Echolls, Maddi Echolls,” Veronica repeats it as if rolling it off her tongue, checking the mouthfeel. The fact that it isn’t an instant veto makes me sure that it’s a contender.

The book is soon discarded on the coffee table in favor of breakfast. She lifts her fork and uses it to cut the flesh of the pancake stack, then mops the syrup. Under eyelashes, blue eyes hit brown, a smile and a smirk are exchanged. Leaning across Hollow, I snatch a syrup laced kiss between forkfuls.

You’ll need to get used to that. 

Life isn’t a fairytale. There are ups and downs. When a perpetually snarky man lives with a perpetually stubborn woman, occasionally we can disagree. And that’s okay, because then we get to make-up and sometimes that’s the best part. But we promise to do our best, we’ll work at it each and every day. 

Because it’s worth it, she’s worth it. Maybe I’m even worth it.

And of course, my love, you’re worth it.

  
  
  



End file.
